Want to bet your life (your family's lives)?

If you feel uncomfortable with sidearms and feel that all the protection you will ever need is your local police force than this article is not for you. You can rest easy falsely believing that at any time and any place the police will come to your rescue and be there to save you and your family from injury or death at any time, night or day, seven days a week all year long....year after year.

If you are of a more realistic mindset and know that only you are ultimately responsible for your and your family's personal safety I recommend that you go to:

MCR2CA.com

Copy and paste to bring up this site. It says all you need to know and to become involved if you wish.

Civilian Police Investigative Agency

With all the recent controversy surrounding the McHenry County Sheriff's Police Department it might be prudent for the McHenry County Board to consider establishing a Civilian Police Investigative Agency. In order to be successful the Civilian Investigative Agency would have to possess the following elements:

1. Independence - The civilian review body must be independent of the Sheriff's Police Department.


2. Investigative Power - The civilian review body must have the authority and resources to independently investigate complaints.


3. Mandatory Police Participation (aka Subpoena Power) - The civilian review body must be able to compel the participation of officers in their investigations and hearings.


4. Role in the Discipline System - A civilian review body must have a role in the discipline of officers where complaints are upheld. That role may be advisory to the Police Department, or civilian review may have a disciplinary role in certain defined cases.


5. Statistical Analysis and Reporting - The civilian review body should issue a report at least annually on statistics involving police complaints and other aspects of policing, and analyze the data to identify trends and to identify practices or even individual officers that may require remedial action to improve policing and prevent future incidents.


6. Policy Recommendations - The civilian review body should be both retrospective, investigating individual complaints, but also prospective, proactively looking at ways to improve policing. Policy recommendations in civilian review bodies are often the result of investigating individual complaints, which may identify a need for new or better police practices, policies, or training.
7. Hearing Component (Formal or Informal) - The civilian review body must have the ability to conduct hearings on individual complaints and on matters of policy.
8. Adequate Funding - Funding must be adequate to effectively support the investigative, analysis and reporting, and policy roles of civilian review.
9. Reflects Community Diversity - Both the staff and the civilian review body should reflect community diversity.
10. Accessibility - The public must be able to easily and directly access the civilian review body, whether physically, by phone, e-mail or fax. The physical location of the civilian review body office is an important consideration, and should reflect both the public accessibility of the body, and its independence from the police department.
11. Qualifications and Training - The civilian review staff must be appropriately qualified and trained, and time and funding dedicated to continuing education and peer-to-peer learning. The members of the civilian review body will probably need to meet certain qualifications, and should be given initial orientation and training, with opportunities for ongoing education and peer-to-peer learning.

The above was taken from a discussion by Director Tom Radulovich,BART Police Department Review Committee Meeting of April 29, 2009.

VALLEY HI NURSING HOME.....BEWARE!!

This month's American Journal of Nursing contains an interesting article entitled "Care Suffers When Nursing Homes Switch to a For-Profit Status". I don't believe it is the intention of the McHenry County Board to make Valley Hi a for-profit entity but just to bring the budget under better control. However there is always the temptation to save more and more money and then at some point patient (resident) care is compromised. So one has to be very diligent in pursuing saving vs. patient welfare.

Researchers from Harvard University took a look at changes in payer mix, staffing ratios, occupancy rates, and a spectrum of quality control indicators. What they found was nursing homes that tended to deviate from the "non-profit" side of the spectrum towards to "for profit' side generally provided lower quality care.

According to Charlene Harrington, professor of sociology and nursing in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). "Literature has confirmed that nonprofit institutions are much better in general," she said. "They have higher staffing, higher wages, and lower turnover of employees. Those factors are important in ensuring that patients receive better quality care."

I hope that the Board of Directors of Valley Hi, its current administrator and the McHenry County Board keep a close eye not only on the bottom line but also the quality indicators for the sake of the health and care of the residents of Valley Hi....I am sure they will.