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The Regional Master Transit Plan — on the ballot November 8, 2016 — is a detailed, comprehensive regional transit plan that connects Southeast Michigan’s four counties — Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne — with reliable regional public transit to increase independence for seniors and people with disabilities, get people to work, and boost economic development.

The Regional Master Transit Plan will:

• Connect Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties for the first time.
• Enable seniors to live more independently by centralizing transit options and increasing door-to-door service coverage across Southeast Michigan.
• Connect nearly two million existing jobs, making it easier for workers to get to work on time.
• Create short term construction jobs and long term jobs as new businesses and developments grow along the routes.
• Building and operating the regional transit system will support nearly 67,800 regional jobs over the life of the plan and increase Gross Regional Product by $6 billion.
• Paratransit funding will increase by 33% and provide people with disabilities more independence and opportunity.
• Fill unfilled jobs by ensuring everyone has access to reliable transportation.
• Increase home values by 42% on average within 1/4 mile of frequent public transit.
• A single Regional Fare Card for easy, seamless travel on all vehicles and systems.

Don’t forget to exercise your right to vote on this and many other issues on Tuesday, November 8, 2016!

Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County (CSSW) was awarded a $24,000 grant from the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan to implement an Electronic Health Record (EHR) System in its Behavioral Health Counseling Program.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services is now requiring agencies billing for physical and mental health services to use an EHR. This grant is vital to providing continuous mental health services to those who are living below poverty level.

Additionally, funding will help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of services, decrease administrative costs, allow better communication with primary care physicians, and measure outcomes more effectively.

For more information about the Behavioral Health Counseling Program, please visit their webpage.

An interview with COO David Garvin was published in the book Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs: Program Leaders on History, Approach, Research and Development by Edward W. Gondolf, professor emeritus at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. David, a founder of the Alternatives to Domestic Aggression program, was asked questions such as how he got started in the domestic violence field, why he is committed to it and why programs for batterers work.

Summary of the book:

Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs responds to the intense debate about the approach and effectiveness of batterer programs, especially in light of the “evidence-based practice” movement. But it does so through a collection of 24 interviews with batterer program founders and leaders who have been working in the field for 25 to 35 years. In the process, it answers many of the misconceptions and misrepresentations of batterer programs, and highlights their contributions and development. It also offers recommendations to researchers and the field in general that would help strengthen the work overall.

More specifically, the book is a follow-up to the author’s research-oriented book, The Future of Batterer Programs: Reassessing Evidence-Based Practice (Northeastern University Press, 2012). That book critically reviewed the research on batterer programs in light of the demand for documentation of program effectiveness and documented the effective role of batterer programs in an intervention system. It also exposed the need for “evidence-based practice” research to include the feedback, interpretations, and critique of practitioners who have their own “evidence” to contribute.

In Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs, a summarizing introduction and conclusion on leadership frame the set of leader interviews. The collection of interviews represents an archive of the experience and wisdom of long-term workers in the field-many of whom are on the verge of retirement. This “database” should help researchers develop more meaningful studies, and ground research results in actualities of the work. Ideally, the interviews will also help practitioners realize their commonalities and better represent themselves to their critics and public in general.