Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.

Hello and welcome to Arkansas Week.

I'm Dawn Scott.

Good to see you here.

A comprehensive plan is intended to assist Arkansans struggling with substance abuse disorders and mental illness.

We will talk with top officials with the Department of Human Services about that in just a bit.

But first, we're just weeks away from a highly anticipated solar eclipse, which the governor and others say could draw more people to Arkansas than any other event in history.

Here's a preview of a documentary being produced by Arkansas PBS about the excitement.

There's going to be a total solar eclipse.

The moon is going to completely block the sun for about 4 minutes.

10 seconds.

Any time you get an opportunity to see a total solar eclipse, I think you have It's absolutely fascinating things to watch.

This probably the most spectacular thing I've ever seen in my life.

I would say it was a religious experience.

It really is.

It's a once in a lifetime thing and try to find the magic in it, because what's coming through your backyard?

Definitely couldn't take my eyes off it to see the alignment of it was really cool.

I didn't want to miss a second of it.

We will have details on that documentary as well as our own live coverage plans at the end of this segment.

But being in the path of totality on Monday, April eight, has officials projecting that anywhere from 300000 to 1 million visitors will come to our state.

How could this affect traffic, public safety and many other aspects of life?

Well, joining me to discuss are Lori Tudor, the director of the Arkansas Department of Transportation.

Also, AJ Gary, our friend from the director of emergency management, the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.

We appreciate both of you being here with us to discuss.

There is so much excitement around this, but I know from your perspective, you're looking at preparation.

What has gone into preparing for this?

And we'll start with you, Lori.

Well, first of all, the number of visitors is going to be contingent on the weather that day.

So if it's cloudy in Arkansas, we don't expect as many visitors.

But if it's cloudy in Texas and it's clear in Arkansas, we expect a lot more visitors.

So our dot is planning for the that case scenario.

We predict they'll start coming in about Friday on April 1st.

And they'll be trickling in and there'll be some congestion, but it'll be more like a holiday weekend, like Thanksgiving or July 5th.

July 4th, I'm sorry, on you know, leading up to that Monday.

Monday is going to be the issue because other states during the 2017 eclipse, they experienced and reported to us that immediately following the eclipse, about 80% of their visitors wanted to leave immediately.

So if you think about like a concert or a, you know, a football game or anything like that, when everybody's trying to leave at the same time how that traffic congestion is.

Well, that's what we're going to be experiencing statewide or in the path of the eclipse.

Well, that brings me to you, A.J.. You know, obviously, when we have that many people in one spot, you're you're on watch for anything that could potentially happen.

How are you prepared?

So thank you so much.

At the emergency management, we prepare for this just like we do a lot of other events that we have in Arkansas, weather events, so forth.

So over the last year, we have conducted monthly coordination calls with all of our local officials or county emergency managers.

We've also had our state agencies and some of our federal partners involved in those calls.

So we're able to, you know, with them, kind of plan out what's going to take place.

We've also conducted tabletop exercises.

We had over 100 people.

Again, some more local partners, federal state partners are a part of that.

Now, we did a full scale exercise, not a full scale, but an exercise at the state EOC yesterday, which we had our state agencies again in the room with us running through some different scenarios.

The things that could happen that that we would may need to have to face.

So, you know, we've done a lot of preparing there.

The biggest thing with us is those partnerships when we're we're going to activate the state Emergency Operations center starting on Saturday.

So we have people there ready.

If, you know, if anything happens, we're ready to go.

So we'll you know, right now the plan is to keep activated, of course, through the event and probably a day or two afterwards as people start leaving.

And that just to make sure everything's good.

Department of Transportation will have somebody in the EOC with us and we'll have all of our other state agencies that have been involved in the planning actually there.

Well, I know some sections in the path in terms of our highway system are under construction right now.

But you've addressed that as well.

Yes, I have.

And so we have a traffic management plan that we put together a couple of months ago, and that included getting best practices from other states.

And one of the things that came out of that is to put a special provision in all our construction contracts that would say that from Friday, April 5th through Tuesday, April, not there should be no work going on in those in those work zones to help that traffic to continue to flow as well as possible through those construction sites.

You know, I'm curious, you talked about partnerships, A.J.. One has to be the private sector.

I mean, working with you know, do we have the capacity in terms of cell phone towers?

Just that's one thing that comes to my mind.

But imagine so many more components.

Absolutely.

And in addition to the tabletop exercises, the the exercise that we did yesterday, our communications team has also conducted exercises with Oklahoma and Texas, planning for that.

And part of those coordination and part of the exercises is our federal partners and our private partners.

So we have our cell phone providers that are our tracking this.

They're involved in those discussions that we've had, and they know there will be an increase.

With the increase of people coming to the state, there will be increased use of cell phones.

So they're they're aware of that and they're taking action to take care of any capacity issues.

Well, and then, of course, public safety is another concern that both of you can probably address any time someone's attention, you know, is going to be focused on something for such a period of time.

We always have nefarious or bad characters around.

So I know you all have thought about this.

We have.

And there will be a, you know, large cell state police are going to have a large number of people out talking with the colonel there.

They're actually going to have people that are normally in the office actually out working on highway patrol in lower sections, are going to have people out, our local county and city are going to have, you know, additional personnel out working because of the additional number of people that will be in the state.

We're not expecting any problems, but we know traffic is going to be the largest concern with that congestion.

So they all have plans on on keeping traffic moving and, you know, keeping things as safe as we can for visitors and citizens.

That's true.

And what we have planned as far as our Dot's concerned is we're going to have Arkansas Highway police in our DOT staff at key locations where we suspect will be a very congested area.

We'll have supplies for everybody that might end up in some kind of a traffic delay situation like gasoline, water, food, medical supplies.

We have these all-terrain and small vehicles that we can get in and we use these during the winter weather.

Other times when the traffic is in some in a delay situation where we can go in and out of traffic and get on the median or in the shoulder and, you know, work on making sure everybody's okay.

But the main thing they like to hear is what's going on.

Why am I stuck in traffic?

And so the information that we're able to get out to them helps to contain impatience.

And just knowing what's happening is a huge deal.

So we have that in place.

I want to ask about that because there is an online tool that was created specifically for this that's, I think, important for people to know about whether they live here or visiting here.

Explain more about what this is.

So we started it's a citizen's portal and we are kicking it off during this event.

But it is something that we can use on any other event that comes up.

But it's on this portable on this portal citizens can go to and they can find things like the the closest hospital to where they're at.

If we have inclement weather safe rooms, community safe rooms, those are on.

There also is a list of events.

And it's been remarkable when we first put that out.

How many cities, counties, different, different people would contact us and say, my events, not on there.

Will you please add my event to the list?

So it's a lot of good information on that that can get out to our citizens if they need it.

Again, we've rolled it out for this event, but for future events, you know, we're coming up on the year anniversary of the March 31st tornadoes that hit central Arkansas.

And when this would be a great thing, if we have another incident like that, people could go there, find out where the shelters are at, find out exactly where to go.

So this is this is something new for us.

My teams worked on it for a little while and it's we're excited about the about the opportunities to use this to help citizens on future events, especially as everybody is leaving, which you said everyone at the last event want to just get out as soon as possible.

A quick question, though.

You mentioned the terrain vehicles that you use during winter weather.

There's been some mentioned this is sort of like a snow day.

Kids are out of school.

Do we treat it like that?

Stock up for us locals, I guess.

Do we get what we need?

I mean, what do you advise?

Well, this is funny.

We were putting all these thoughts together for this interview, and the first thing everyone needs to know is put in your phone.

I drive Arkansas app because you can get real time information to know what the traffic is along the roads, where the congestion is.

So do that.

Stock up on groceries and gasoline.

Is it far in advance as you can because we're going to have all these influx of visitors who are going to be trying to get those things.

So just like a snow day when there's no milk and no bread left on those things, you need to do that you need to put in your car If you're going to have to get out that day and you're going to be traveling where you're talking about that just like in winter, what we say you're getting in your car and you know you're going to have to drive through ice and snow.

Where do you put it?

You have water, you have snacks, pitcher medications in there in case you get into a long delay and most importantly, put a porta potty in your car.

You will work out later.

They need it for one of those times before.

Well, final thoughts from each of you before we wrap this up, A.J.. Sure.

So, you know, going back to, you know, what, our citizens, I think the most important thing is that they're aware that everybody's aware that there's going to be increased traffic.

So for everybody to kind of plan for that, you know, if they if they don't have to get out that day and they want to stay where they're at and enjoy the eclipse, great.

If they need to get out, just kind of plan for that extra time, it's going to take them to get somewhere.

So I think that's that's very important.

And, you know, the main thing we want our citizens.

We want our our guests that are coming to the state to really enjoy Arkansas, enjoy this event.

I think it's very important, this opportunity to showcase our state to people that may not have thought about coming to Arkansas.

Now that, you know, they're coming for the eclipse and they can see a lot of the other wonderful things that we have in our state.

So it should be a great tourism opportunity and I hope the weather holds out.

Oh, thank you.

All right, AJ, Gary, thank you so much.

Along with Lorie Tudor, the Arkansas Department of Transportation director, along with the director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.

Thanks to both of you for being here.

And the documentary being produced by Arkansas PBS about this excitement leading up to the eclipse will premiere March 28.

That will also air before and after our live coverage on April eight.

And as the eclipse moves through Arkansas from the southwest to the northeast in the span of about 12 minutes, people from around the state will be providing reports.

We will be with a team from NASA in Russellville, and we hope you'll join us, too.

I'll be back with more of Arkansas week after this.

Welcome back.

A multifaceted plan approved by the state last month is intended to improve mental health and substance abuse services.

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the Department of Human Services will be using $30 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds.

And joining me to discuss are the three top officials from the Department of Human Services, Cabinet Secretary Christie Putnam, along with Janet Mann, the deputy secretary of programs, and the state Medicaid director and the director of specialty Medicaid Populations.

Melissa of Weather ten, we appreciate the three of you being with us.

Tell us first, how did this plan come about, as well as the funding to address the issues that affect many people in our state?

Sure.

Well, I will start in Janet and Melissa will fill where I miss things.

This really started with us as a team, recognizing that although there were prior investments needed or behavioral health services starting in 2022 with a different part of the American Rescue Plan funding, we didn't have quite enough to build out some of the infrastructure to deliver the services that are needed.

So the $30 million is in addition to some earlier investments that have been made, primarily to Medicaid providers across the state.

And this is in addition to that, where there are additional gaps that we've identified in our behavioral health services continuum.

So those are the 2 million that that will be for crisis response system, and it mainly will be for specific program providers to build out that infrastructure.

So Janet, Melissa also know that that covers it.

We're really excited and grateful for the opportunity to continue the expansion in the full buildout of our behavioral health system throughout the state for use and adults in this money will help us do some infrastructure work and really build some of the services that are needed.

You know, one of the things that the governors, the governor excuse me did say was that the mental health and substance abuse crises are really layered and tend to go hand in hand.

And I imagine this is aimed at addressing some of that.

Yeah.

I mean, I think one of the we've identified several gaps that we're going to be able to highly utilize this funding.

So we're excited and grateful.

But one of the one of the main gaps that we identified was just not having a crisis support system across the entire state in a coordinated type effort.

And so the 10 million that the governor and the legislature agreed to provide us is going to go towards building that statewide crisis continuum, which we think is going to be a game changer for how we operate here.

Well, and it's just the beginning.

I think we've we've been modeling and looking at several different states for best practices.

And, you know, as we look at some of those states and pick those best practices out, then it's just the beginning and building that foundation.

And I think it will take us, you know, several years to build it out, to be effective.

Yeah.

And there are states, Arizona, Georgia and Oklahoma are the states that this team has looked at.

It's a hub and spoke model for the crisis response system.

So it directs people to the appropriate care setting.

Part of the issue that we have here is we have very high acuity, very expensive settings, but we don't have any intermediate.

And, you know, we can still build out some of our community resources.

So it's looking at that holistic system of where best to send people through that crisis response system.

Well, and people are met at very different levels.

You know, case by case, really.

I'd like to talk about some of the initiatives that are going to help improve the services and provide the resources.

One of them that I read about included a call center and also the use of tablets by first responders is to help connect people with clinicians on really immediately.

But I know there's so much more to it.

Yeah, there is so much more to do in in like received units said.

We don't want to reinvent the wheel necessarily because we have been really researching Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma, just to name a few, because there are some states that do this very well.

But they have been great at giving us kind of the where they launched something that didn't quite work.

And so we're working with them on figuring out, you know, we know we want this to be a centralized hub, like Secretary Putnam mentioned.

We know we want to try to loop in nine, eight, eight and 911.

We don't want to provide other phone numbers.

We know we want to use telemedicine whenever possible as the first line of defense.

And then we also know that that doesn't work for everyone because the system is going to be built for people who all Arkansans, people that are elderly, people with intellectual disability, children.

So we know that sometimes we will have to send out an immediate response.

And so building out that mobile crisis teams utilizing our ambulance system we already have in place.

Well, and that is one thing that was passed earlier in the year that will then complement this additional work is the treat bridge or transport bill that has been passed and is now in the process of going live.

So now ambulances, when they get a phone call, they can either treat or they can triage.

And hopefully that is one of the places we would like to use telemedicine to connect them with the appropriate type of clinician, be it amid surge clinician or behavioral health, mental health clinician.

And then if we can stabilize at home where they are most comfortable, and that's the best way to do that, and if not, then they can be transported.

But the great piece of this great part of this piece of legislation is that they can be transported to the hospital as normal procedures or to an alternative location, like a crisis stabilization unit.

If that is the best place for a behavioral health crisis to to go.

So we now have beginning of some different options to be able to build and build in, continue to build on those through the years.

Yeah.

So getting tablets or other technology into the hands of ambulance drivers and other first responders will be a way for us to help direct them to the right setting where that person who is in crisis.

And Secretary Putnam, I know I read that you had said prior that this plan really invests in areas that help prevent situations from escalating to a crisis situation.

Talk a little more on that.

Sure.

And there are many different crisis situations we're talking about.

I mean, someone can be in crisis in the moment and really need acute care like a crisis stabilization unit so that they're not in danger of harming themselves or others or getting the immediate relief that they need.

But another crisis is we have a lack of we have no youth residential substance abuse treatment in the state.

And the result of that is our juvenile judges.

We've worked very closely with them.

They've expressed concerns that they send some of the kids to our division of youth services, to our residential facilities, detention facilities, because there is no treatment available.

The residential treatment is just not there.

So that's an example of some of the the immediate crisis needs that we're looking to meet.

And I would like to just add and then I'll ask Melissa to talk about some of the details.

We also, with a big emphasis on prevention in moving upstream to try to help children and families and adults that we have.

We are piloting three different three different programs to try to do more prevention either before they come into care or crisis or when they do have to enter into our system to have some options.

And Melissa can talk about those in greater detail than I can.

Yeah.

So as Secretary Putnam mentioned when we first started, so we had given CMS some additional American rescue funds and started back in 2022.

And so luckily with those funds we were able to launch and or begin to launch several prevention pilots because one of the secretaries and the governors, you know, emphasis is on prevention.

And we say oftentimes here at DHS that we're just doing, you know, this, we're just sometimes catching and catching people too late.

Right.

So trying to figure out how we can support, right when we get involved with a child or a family, and then also knowing that you cannot just support a child off of prevention.

It doesn't and doesn't work if you don't also go in and try to figure out stabilize the family.

So really trying to do an emphasis on child and family prevention service as well.

And we know from experience in that arena, so much of that involves substance abuse and mental health.

But if you fix substance abuse, there may be a mental health component that's not addressed.

And Vice versa.

And it looks like this is what you're trying to work through.

We are really trying to apply prevention holistically.

So looking at the needs of the whole family to Melissa and Janice, it's really trying to assess the three pilots Melissa mentioned.

One of them is addressing behavioral issues with very young children before they are moved out of a foster home placement or relative placement or before they're moved out of their child care arrangement.

And we have children between the ages of one and four who are experiencing significant behavioral episodes that are requiring them to leave their care settings.

But then you have to go into that family to identify what's going on with that family.

How do we apply the same supportive services to the family so that we can stabilize that entire family?

We really wanted to treat the family, not just the symptom and therefore give them a chance to stabilize and continue or put a Band-Aid over it for, say, by putting a child in foster care but never really addressing the issues at hand, which I really commend you for doing this.

This is fantastic.

When can we expect to start seeing some of these changes roll out?

So we had seen these contacts in the legislature and they got to create to start March 1st.

So you're bound to see this in full force, the first round, the first house and some about prevention and then we plan on launching more in April and more in May.

So we're very quickly doing the prevention programs and through the other are ending.

As far as the 30 or 30 million, we are really hopeful we're going to get a competitive contract out later this year to start building the statewide crisis continuum and where we have a very, you know, and it's very aggressive, aggressive, aggressive timeline.

That's what we're trying to do.

On the other funding, the remaining 20 million that we were given to put some grants out, a competitive substance out for Medicaid providers to bid on.

What else?

What else?

What?

Oh, sorry.

I didn't mean to interrupt.

I was going to ask what else you'd like to add before we wrap it up.

I mean, I would just say that we we're grateful for the opportunity.

We look forward to working with all of our partners in our providers, in trying to develop some long lasting impact for the state of Arkansas so that children and adults have a way to be treated and in return, or have a normal life as much as possible, or at least how to treat and learn how to then be part of the community and manage.

That's a great time manage.

And we're we're very grateful because this was a huge team effort.

The governor has been extraordinarily supportive and her team, the legislators, have really heightened the awareness about the behavioral health needs in the state of Arkansas, and those gaps are what we have to address collectively.

DHS Cabinet Secretary Christie Putnam, along with Janet Mann and Melissa Weathers.

And thank you so much for speaking on mental health and substance abuse improvements in our state.

We thank you so much.

Thank you, John.

Thank you.

And that wraps up this week's edition of Arkansas Week.

I'm Dawn Scott.

Thanks so much for being here.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.