Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Good morning, we're back in Action Center Agriculture. We're gonna spend a few minutes with Farm First and get an overview. We have Angela Shea as far as on here as clinical director, Farm First. Welcome, the floor is yours.

[Angela Shea (Clinical Director, Farm First)]: Nice to see you all, thanks for having us as Farm First, and I've also thrown along Mark Adams, Director of Invest EAP. I'm Angela Shea, I'm a social worker with the Farm First program. Farm First is a program that is within the EAP system through the state, We support farmers across the state. We offer a hotline, we offer counseling, we offer a peer program, we offer website resources. What makes us unique is that you will get instant care when you call and you'll get a licensed clinician. Rare that there'll be a waitlist, This is a program, I think we all know, just wanna say, I appreciate all of your leadership in this room for this community. I think we all know how critical agriculture is to our identity and our culture within Vermont. I think we also know how much the struggle is real for our farmers, just like all humans, right? So, anytime there's uncertainty, there's going to be anxiety, there's going to be stress. When you look at a farmer life, it's a lot of uncertainty, whether that be the weather, whether that be the market, whether that be the economy, whether that be their staffing. So, Farm First is there to be able to help navigate throughout that time, We're there with a supportive check-in and we're there with counseling and we're there with resources. We do a lot of outreach in the community. We'll go to farms and we'll put on workshops, psychoeducation. We know that psychoeducation around mental helps reduce stigma. Stigma around processing treatment, stigma around mental health. We know that suicidality is three times higher in our ag populations, in our construction populations, and fat farming, fishing, hunting, and that's a staggering number, three times higher than your general population. Our work is to be able to break down those walls and that stigma, have conversations, have workshops, present at conferences, go out to farms. We had a death by suicide and have it recently in the fall, and we were able to organize, partner with the local fire department, the volunteer fire department, find a farmer to host. We brought dinner, we had a beautiful conversation around what is mental health, how are you doing, what are the signs and symptoms for suicidality, what do we need for resources, what's it going to? That was just a nice way to wrap around that. We don't hide it, we talk about it. I think the other thing is, it's unique to be thinking about meeting a farmer where they're at. Yes, Farm First is for farmers, but it's also for their family members, and that's a really unique thing to say they're along this ride too, and that's not easy. For example, up north, we had a farmer who was struggling with a significant mental health issue, really significant. They actually got connected, they got stabilized. The farm was really worried about the wife, and I said, this wife is just like more witness to all of this, and that's really intense. The farm owner called me up and said, I really need someone for this wife. She's got a two month wait list at her local mental health agency. I saw her by Friday. She's in her truck, she's checking in with me. It's not uncommon for people to be wandering around their fields being like, hold on, I think I've got service. We're gonna meet them where they're at, whether that be phone, sometimes text, sometimes Zoom, and varying hours, because we know that that population needs it. Very humbling to work for a fifteen hour day, as some of you might know. A fifteen hour day out there in the field working, managing their family, managing stress, managing bedtime, managing family dynamics are complicated. So I just wanted to touch on that. I hope I'm covering it, trying to hit all these points here.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Well, just want to say, Senator Major started a lot of questioning a while ago, and I think it opened up all our eyes. And then we met with another Senator Major. Go ahead.

[Sen. Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: No. I I just I was I was dumbfounded in war because I just was blindsided at the amount of and I I I in in my business, I use the Investigate and it is a godsend. I'm shocked at the amount of services, how you do it, I have no idea. That it extends to family members as well, you know, from financial to I just I can't stress enough. And then when you just said it for farmers, I mean, it's perfect.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: We had the farmers in. Yeah, and so We first started talking about, well, this one and that one, and that one and this one.

[Sen. Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: Yep. So you had me at hello.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yes. Just, had government operations committee yesterday. We had Beth Bastigi come in, who's the commissioner of human resources, and they've got their own EAP. EAP is Employee Assistance Program, by the way, for all state workers, but this is an independent, separate EAP?

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: Okay. That's just for farmers. Invest EAP is Is this who you are? Sorry. Mark Adams. I'm the director of Invest EAP. Thank you, sir. Invest EAP is the EAP for the state of Vermont. All the workers are covered under our EAP. Cool. So we have about 300 accounts, the aquatic center being one of those accounts across the book of business. Okay. Thirty plus years ago, Hirability, Diane Dalmas, who is the director there and the former director of Invest E and P, got by statute to be able to charge businesses, like an EAP to provide this service, and so over the years, we've grown to about 300, you know, companies that we serve. We have, I think, about 160,000 covered lives that we support, and that's folks that are the employer, the employer itself, their employees, and then all the family members that live in those households. Over time, and I think it was 2009, Steve and Diane, it was during one of the many dairy crises around that process, said we need to be doing this for farmers, and so they just launched into providing our service into farmers, and we've been grappling and struggling to find funds to make that all work. We've gotten a lot of grants over the years to sort of grow and blossom, but the grant world has changed markedly in the last few years, including the economy has changed, so businesses have had trouble being able to afford, you know, our care and our benefit, so our ability to support farm first, sort of with all the bells and whistles has decreased. So we used to have a Farm First coordinator who was sort of a resource person that if someone called and they were having trouble finding feed, we could make them connect to the right services in the ag community to get to feed. If they were having trouble with some legal stuff, we can connect them to a legal person to help them sort of think through what they might need to do. Succession planning, we have partnerships with groups in Vermont that have that expertise, as well as they get connected to legal and financial support. We've just translated the benefit in essence that you and your team has at aquatic center to farmers at no cost to them. And that was one of the things that we just that Diane and Steve thought was really important, that we've just been kind of grinding through and keeping that allotted. And we have a couple of other sort of specialized services. We have a Securer, just an EAP for first responders, and some of you may have heard about that. That's another group that we've sort of studied. There are special communities that need special kinds of outreach. EAP First, you know, reaches out to first responders. They're a very special group around wellness and mental health. You have to be in their world to be a partner with them, and so that's how we developed Secure through a peer program. Farmers are also very different. They are very independent. They don't like to ask for help. That's not part of their nature, and so we have to sort of find places where it's a little easier to ask for help, I've got this weird thing happening with my machinery. I can't get anybody to send a loan. I can't get a loan to get my new stuff. That's an ask that a farmer can reach out to, and alongside of that we then ask, well, how are you doing otherwise? So the call might come in because they got financial problems, but then we find out, well, yeah, I did. My son, several years ago, I lost because he was lost to an opioid addiction. Oh, that's a big deal. How can we help you with that? Because you're probably grieving that still. He might have been the person that was going to take over the farm. How do we support you? It's sort of like a little bit of a crack in the door, and we can sort of support that. So that's the frame we try to pull up for this work.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yeah. So the chair's permission, I wanna tell the rest of the committee is gonna go, and maybe the folks here from Farm First. When the interstate was built back in the '60s, and I-ninety 1 specifically, which maybe you know the story I'm gonna tell if any of which moved from Massachusetts up. There was a farmer in Windham County named Romy, that was his last name, who had a couple acre farm, didn't have power. He had running water, but he didn't have power. And it became apparent to him, I'm not sure what year it was, 'sixty, maybe 'sixty one, when the interstate, and they built it in sections, so they would still, you get off at a certain exit, and then you'd take the old road. Sure I'm that's

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: what they call it, the five or the bus.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: At any rate, it became apparent to him, and he lived alone. He was the son of a pretty large family. I think he had five or six brothers and sisters, that they were gonna come and take his land, And it was through eminent domain. No way around it. He he had talked to people to see if they could just take a little bit of a a curve around, but it it became apparent at some point that they were gonna grab it, and he was distraught. I'm not sure he would have used the EAP, because he was very stubborn and very much an old Vermont farmer and had animals on his farm and the group crops, and he was dairy. So the sheriff showed up one day, served him papers, and said, This is it. By tomorrow, we're gonna come in, and we're gonna take the farm. And he committed suicide that night. So the barn's on fire, let the animals go, and then the farmhouse, and they haul them inside. So just kind of one of those stories. So today, when you get on to 91, you could still see part of what was his land, I think. Oh, wow. So that's a powerful story. Thank you. I know. Sorry to bring people down. Yeah. But it's true. And you can look that up. His last name was Wilhine, yeah.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: I remember hearing the story, not to that depth, but yeah. So, So Angela, tell us more.

[Angela Shea (Clinical Director, Farm First)]: Yes. Okay. I I think Mark was able to talk a little bit about the idea of our funding sometimes can be tricky, right? So, there's obvious gaps. But I think that's where the creativity comes in, of us trying to be creative and trying to be flexible when we serve this population. We're always looking for grants and we're looking for opportunities to sort of continue. I would say what we see a lot of is dairy farmers. We see veggie berry farmers. Yes, your farmer is maybe your seven year old male dairy farmer, but it's also like your 30 year old flower farmer of a female who's on Instagram, right, and is in touch with her emotions and her feelings and wants to get care. A lot of what we see is relationship issues, whether that be within the family or within their staffing. I think a lot of people sign up to be farmers and they say, I'm gonna be a farmer. Oh, but now I need a staff? Oh, and now I need to manage this staff? Then that creates a whole list of problems. Almost like the teacher who goes into the classroom and wants to teach doesn't realize that we have to deal with all of the things, right? It's complex, that's what we are. That is where communications, boundaries, workplace issues fits really nicely with PAP, we're able to address that, concrete skills, We're implementing therapeutic processes to be able to discuss and talk about that, and then also education. Locations, Northeast Kingdom, Franklin County, Addison, probably 20% of each of those counties. A lot of Central Vermont and a lot of Sub Vermont. That's sort of a picture of who we're seeing. We serve about anywhere from 80 to 100 a year. That may not sound like a tremendous amount, and each one of those is complex in its own nature, and given that we are sort of small but bitey, we do really good quality work, and we're able to actually route them along the line of bridging them to treatment, getting them a higher level of care of treatment, or just offering two supportive home check ins. Sometimes that's all it takes, and then know that I'm here. You can always call back again to slide. That is where the service can be flexible. What we know about pharmacists is there's not always health insurance, right? Or they're not making the time to figure out the health insurance because really there is no time in their life. And so maybe they qualify, maybe they're under qualified, so this is a nice way to be able to gap that, and that's something we can address in the call too. Hey, what do you think about counseling? Did this go well for you? Have you thought about applying for Medicaid? Let's do that, right? Here's what it could look like. Many times I think what liked, what Mark said was, we'll get someone in through the door with a call around concern for purchasing cattle, understanding their grain bill, and we'll be like, that's really stressful. The simple art of sort of reflection on how stressful that must be and expressing concern can really go a long way when you're trying to engage someone in care.

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: I think the linkage for us, for meeting with you, really one for you to be aware so that when you meet a farmer, you can offer this as an opportunity. So we'll send you some information about how folks can connect. I also you folks have been well connected to hireability, and so as being part of that system, the Vogue Rehab system in the state, we have sort of an easy entree from our services into that disability process, and many of the farmers we're working with have connections that need disability, in the past, our ability has put set asides for folks to get upgrades on their equipment, like some folks need lifts to get into their tractor and those kinds of accommodations so people can keep farming even though they've got some issues with their, you know, body, and so we have lots of connections. We have great connection with the Agency of Agriculture here. Abby and her team do a great job with us and support us very well. We have started to make connections even outside of Vermont with some work we're doing for a grant for the USDA. It's called the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network. It's a pilot program to develop resources for farmers and ranchers across the country, and there's different cohorts in different places across the country. We are partnered with the Northeastern cohort and have done some real work, and that's where we developed our peer support system was through that grant, where we have farmers that are also accessed, that people can access directly to talk about what's going on in their in their world. So that's how we've sort of moving and shaking around this this piece. In the past, we have had much more money to do a lot of outreach where we did marketing campaigns, we had, French porch forums, and, you know, we pushing people to our website so they get access to the resources there. That has slowed down a lot because we just don't have the resources to do that piece of the puzzle, but we still have that intake of folks that can come in. The 800 number that we have gets to crisis call center. They get instant help. If that gentleman had had called us that you told the story about, my hope is we might have been able to talk him off that ledge, maybe he would have then lived to maybe get get a farm in a new place that was down the Road. So he could have maybe survived that that event. That's the goal we have is to to preserve as much of the the farming community as we can. Those are some of the thoughts that we just wanted to share

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: with you folks. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two questions. Is there an appropriations ask here from your group? Is there anything in the budget?

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: No. No. We're we're Okay. We're part of Dale, and so so Fair enough. Our commissioner is is taking care of that.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: And my second one, and this may take a little bit longer, if I were to try to help someone, I

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: would have absolutely no idea how

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: to do that. If I'm talking to a farmer, I wouldn't know if I was saying the right thing or the wrong thing would make it worse. So how are you able to find people that, don't want to say they're psychology majors, but there must be some training involved so that someone doesn't step on the wrong phrase all of a Yeah. Sudden make it

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: We do offer, we've trained a lot of ag service providers, the folks that work driving the milk trucks, the co ops, supporting them to understand how to have some of these harder conversations of like, Joe, I've seen you the last couple weeks, you're looking pretty sad, what's going on? Can I give you a number? Maybe you could call. And so we train them on how to do that. We also offer, you may have heard of mental health first aid trainings. We also do that for ag service and other farmers and communities where they get a little bit of an insight in how to talk to someone they think is depressed or, maybe they've experienced someone being strange, and they're maybe they're having a little psychosis or something, they don't know what to do. This gives them an opportunity to learn a little bit how to how to get to resource, but also how to be with that person in that struggle. So we try to do a lot of training around that, and we try to put our magnets and things up so people can just find our number and get there.

[Angela Shea (Clinical Director, Farm First)]: It's a great reflection though, and great to be curious around that, and I think it can be really empowering for people to take that course of the time we were saying, we've tweaked it a little for the farming population to make it a little shorter and a little more, hey, pick nuts, woes, right, to understand that. But it goes a long way. It goes a long way to just be curious about that. My

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: dad was a, I could say shrink, but he was a clinical psychologist with the VA. And so growing up, sort of, after a while, kind of knew the procedure that

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: I was gonna if I wanted the car and he had the keys, we were have to engage each other for quite a while before I got the key. So I knew how to sorta play the game after

[Angela Shea (Clinical Director, Farm First)]: a while

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: too, but he was very good, very gentle man, that kinda thing. I'm sure he had patients that, you know, loved him, but

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: I wasn't always in that chair.

[Sen. Joseph "Joe" Major (Vice Chair)]: That's pretty funny.

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: Because I wasn't always getting the key. Yeah.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: What else? Yes. Well, it's very important. We went to, the farmer sold his farm, I met him just prior to selling it, and he was looking forward to it at first, and then once he sold it, he moved just up the road because he staked out, and then I went to see if he had a scrap business that he had, what he thought was great stuff, but all outdated, his wife finally said she needed to get rid of it, And when I met him again for the second time, he had lost all his weight. He just, I made the wrong decision, you know, he was in a dark place. Think he's doing better now because his wife got help in that. Of course, being a farmer, because I grew up on a farm, hey, dealings? We don't have dealings here, still then, still then. So good, and being a farmer was able to talk to him, found that life was worth looking at because he was really thinking about, Oh, that's it. He left for a couple weeks, they went up to something of the vein and he cleaned up his whole property. Oh, nice. When he came back, we had it organized and that really, he's like, it can get better. Yeah, I haven't seen them lately, but it's something, I'm glad you're out there and be able to say, hey, check this box. It's kind of like what the soldiers have, the airmen have in the service that we have. Forget the name of it at the moment, but soldier first or something that we know we can turn to and make a phone call. Like you said, the nice thing is, person at the end of the line doesn't know who you are, they wanna give you judgment, so it comes to your Yeah.

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, experiences you just described with that transition of that farm, know, that's mostly it's the community that are our ambassadors, you know, and so it's a little bit of we've touched one person in Addison County. Hopefully, they've touched three, and they've shared maybe a little bit about what they've experienced, and then those people trust and say a little bit about that. So that's that. We we really get a lot of support from word-of-mouth, and that's why every client we meet, we wanna be there for, because they're gonna carry our our message forward. So that's a really good example of of how that could work. I'm just really grateful for the work you folks are doing to support this community, so thank you for that, and thank you for that for being talked about that.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Sure. Thank you, Chair Ingalls. We had the agency in, and I can't remember what form it was, but there's a suicide kind of reference. Maybe not saying that the right way. Does that link to your number, or do they have their own? It seemed like you could go on their website and Was access the

[Angela Shea (Clinical Director, Farm First)]: it on AgencyAdvanced website?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: Yes. I don't know whether Dig a

[Angela Shea (Clinical Director, Farm First)]: little deeper to know about that.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: There would be some coordination there.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Member)]: So I

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: haven't been on that website for a while. There's usually, 988 is one of the big numbers right now for any kind of suicide prevention. That's that national number now that they've got really going. Maybe that's what's up. It's 988. The good part about that phone number is if for example, Vermont, people who operate 988 are busy, it bumps to someone close by and they can help. We have our own crisis number that if people see us on our website, a toll free number they can call us 20 they get access to that clinician, they do a brief little assessment to see what's happening, how much risk there is, they have a backdoor into DSP so that if someone's really in need, can kinda get somebody up to that farm and stop something bad from happening. We've got systems in place to help with that.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Great. All good. Have you guys told us what you'd like us to hear?

[Mark Adams (Director, Invest EAP)]: We have. You have. Well, thank

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: you very much. And, again, I senator Benjamin and I have had several conversations about that painful day, because I do think it's that painful day. It started out with a conversation a a lot like what you guys do, but I'll start with a conversation, right? So you opened our eyes up to it, and we are very appreciative of what you do for our farming community and for everyone else as well.

[Angela Shea (Clinical Director, Farm First)]: Thank you all.

[Sen. Robert Plunkett (Member)]: You. Appreciate the time.

[Sen. Russ Ingalls (Chair)]: Thank much. Thank Thank you coming on. The committee, I want to thank you guys for a very strong week. I think we went from wondering how much effort we've got to get through the seventeen seconds to starting to figure it out put this path forward. I think that we're going be in pretty good shape. I like, you know, I want to keep it kind of focused on not giving up on anything, but let's not step on land money if we don't have to. And let's just try to keep everything we have in front of us in our control as much as we can. But other than that, great week. Thank you for your hard work, and you have a good weekend.