Certified Professional Guardian Board (CPGB)

June 9, 2006

June 10, 2006

Chair:   Judge Vicki Hogan

Vice-Chair:Comm. Fred Aronow

Members Present:
Robin Balsam

Ruth Craven

Ray Dingfield
Hank Hibbard
John Jardine
Michael Longyear
Tom O’Brien
Lori Petersen
Jerry Reilly
Winsor Schmidt
Judge Chris Wickham
Suzanne Thompson Wininger

Members Absent:

Judge M. Karlynn Haberly (Excused)
Comm. Kimberley Prochnau (Excused)

Sharon York (Excused)

Staff:               

Shirley Bondon
Lynne Alfasso
Sylvia Nelson

Call to Order:

The meeting was called to order by Judge Hogan immediately following breakfast at 9:15 a.m.

Judge Hogan thanked everyone for taking time from his or her business schedule to attend and participate in the retreat.  The discussion from Friday night continued.  Discussion items are included as follows:

Question #2 – What size should the Board be and what other entities should be represented.

§    It is important to have an active member of the Senior Citizen Lobby serving on the Board so that their perspective is included for consideration in Board decisions.  The Senior Citizen Lobby is unique in that it is a coalition of senior organizations from around the state.

§    To be effective, new Board members must become acclimated to the Board, its procedures and processes faster.  The new member orientation developed by Lynne Alfasso should facilitate that process.  In addition, the Board should consider having experienced Board members serve as sponsors or mentors to the novice members.   Everyone agreed this should be implemented with new Board members appointed.

In the interest of expanding the diversity, the Board discussed considering the following entities in Board discussions:

§    A lawyer/representative from one of the public advocacy groups, such as Washington Protection and Advocacy, (WPAS) and the Northwest Justice Project

§    Small guardian agencies

§    The state aging and long-term care ombudsman

§    Other areas outside of central Washington such as Wenatchee and the tri-cities core

§    Individuals with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds

§    Consumer/advocate.

When considering a new Board member, three organizations have designated positions:  the Superior Court Judges’ Association (SCJA), the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA- 2 positions) and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS- 1 position).

Other ideas expressed by board members include:

§    The Board should be larger to enable it to complete the number of tasks assigned.

§    If the Board becomes much larger, it will not be manageable and will become ineffective.  Staggered and regular turnover of Board members should occur to provide an opportunity for other voices to be heard.  Board members cannot remain on the Board indefinitely and term limits need to be included in the Regulations.  The terms of five Board members end September 30, 2006 (Haberly, O‘Brien, Petersen, Reilly, Schmidt).

§    The Board needs to maintain a reasonable consistent approach or practice from year to year.  Turnover on the board needs to be measured.  New people need management ability separate and distinct from the grouping they represent.  Serving at least two terms was discussed as a possible term limit.

§         The current Board size of 18 is effective.

§         The Board should develop a means to allow non-members to participate on the Board without being Board members.

§         Inviting people to serve on committees is a way to identify new leadership.

§         The Board has clear authority to ask non-board members to serve as a Hearing Officer, to provide education, and to perform editing tasks.

§         We need to develop a way to provide quality training to guardians in Eastern Washington.  Lori Petersen has offered one training in Spokane this calendar year.  Another is planned for October.

§         Board needs more face-to-face meetings.  A tentative schedule will be drafted for 2007 and included in the statement of interest for Board volunteers.

§         More new Board member orientation, including providing more information on the background of the Board, is needed.

Question #3a - How can the Board improve the certification process? How can the Board better define tasks relative to the practice of guardianship?

More specific requirements could be passed on to staff; staff would screen the applicants to be certified.  Board members should not be screening applicants.  There is a need to clean up the standards for certification as well as a need for a mechanism to let the committee do the subjective piece.

The Board needs to set the parameters. Currently our standards are minimum standards for certification.  We need specific knowledge, skills and ability assessments and job descriptions within the categories of legal, financial, social, health, and medical. Board should develop a template and rely on staff and the Application Committee.

By increasing the education requirements, the Board moves away from the subjective consideration which is difficult to measure in each application.  The Board could consider changing its recommendation to the Supreme Court and increase the minimum educational requirement to a bachelor’s degree only.  This could be accomplished by communicating to the Supreme Court that after reflection, we believe that the Associates degree is not sufficient education. 

The Application Committee’s role should be to double check the work of the staff.  The Board ought to approve with minimum discussion unless there is concern with a particular applicant.

It isn’t enough to require an associate or a bachelor’s degree, the Board should specify some content.

The Board must be sensitive to the impact our decisions have on the availability of guardians.  The key requirement is that guardians have the ability to problem-solve.  Guardians interact in many ways, and having a degree does not necessarily give an advantage.

If we agree that the key is critical thinking, why don’t we work with an institution and define a certificate program - 90 hours or 1 year.

We should focus on the professional analysis, task analysis, and work with an educational institution.

Question #3b - Are we interested in asking the Supreme Court to increase the minimum education requirement to a bachelor’s degree?

The prevailing nationwide practice in public guardianships is a bachelor or master’s degree.

Board members all believe that educational requirements should be higher than the current ones, but are unwilling to require bachelor’s degrees at this time.

Question #4 – What information is needed to perform a better assessment of applicants?

§    Resume

§    More specific questions on the application

§    Checklist

§    Description of the different types of homes

§    Definition of terms

§    Tasks associated with position titles

The Board agreed by consensus to explore a bachelor’s degree and a certificate program at a local college.  A sub-committee will be appointed to develop a certificate program.  In the interim, the Board will consider more specific continuing education and a requirement to show proof of competency in a variety of areas.  The sub-committee to explore a certificate program is comprised of – Craven, Jardine, Hibbard, Schmidt, Thompson Wininger.  Anyone else interested in serving should contact the Board chair.

In the future, the Application Committee will recommend approval or denial of every applicant.  The committee will present their recommendations to the Board in two categories – a list of approval recommendations and a list of denial recommendations.

AOC will no longer copy applications and bring them to the meeting.  All Board members may view applications online with a pass code.  This will require Board members to do their homework prior to the meeting.

When an applicant has filed bankruptcy, a credit report and proof of bond ability will be required.  The application needs to be changed to reflect this requirement.

In summary, the Board looks forward to GR 23 being amended to increase the educational requirements from a high school diploma to an Associate’s degree.  Eventually it is believed that the complexity of guardianships will require guardians to have a bachelor’s degree.  In the interim, the Board will perform a task analysis and guardian responsibilities to develop the required knowledge, skills and abilities.  A committee will explore the development of a core certificate program at an educational institution.  The Education Committee will beef up the continuing education requirements.  Board membership needs more diversity, geographic, agency, advocacy, and ethnicity.  The orientation materials for new members will be improved; experienced board members will mentor new member.  The Board will consider term limits – two maybe three consecutive terms.  The Board will begin recruiting new member by drafting a request for letters of interest and distributing it.  Non board members will be used on certain discrete tasks.  Finally, while consensus was not reached some progress was made on requiring an annual financial audit of each guardian, as of an effective date.  The financial audit could include an audit of the business entity to show that the organization is financially healthy.

The last item on the Board’s agenda was a discussion of proposed ethics opinions.

New Guardians usually don’t have the practice history that helps inform them of ethical discourse.  Therefore, often what is being requesting in the guise of an Ethics Opinion is more akin to a request for guidance, a best practice.  One question to be answered is - Does the Board want to continue writing Ethics Opinions, should the Board write best practices or both?

The format that has been developed is as follows:

(1)   When a request for opinion arrives, the specifics of the request will be distributed to committee members before the committee meeting.  The request will be considered, and the request approved or shaped per the general agreement of the committee;

(2)  Volunteers will be solicited to perform research. One volunteer shall research all CPG rules for corollaries with the issue that is going to be addressed. One volunteer shall research statutes and case law.

(3) Research will be shared with the committee and a direction agreed upon.

(4)  The opinion will be drafted.

(5) The drafts of the opinion will be circulated through AOC staff before being considered at the Ethics committee meeting.  Committee members can take that opportunity to make modifications and send them to staff who will consolidate them all into a draft.  That draft will then be distributed to the committee as a whole and will serve as the model for discussion at the committee meeting.

(6) Staff will continue to consolidate comments into drafts of the opinion until the committee arrives at general consensus.

(7) The opinion will be presented to the Board.

As per Regulation 300 ethics opinions shall be based upon existing law, legal decisions, court rules, regulations, statutes, Standards of Practice, and other information ordinarily relied upon in the course of legal and ethical decision-making.

Discussion

§    The difference between a Standard of Practice and a best practice is that a Standard of Practice is a required course of conduct under the Regulations.  With a best practice, an equivalent or comparable method is acceptable.  A Standard of Practice is the minimum standard.  A best practice is above the minimum requirement.

§    If the Board writes ethics opinions they could be the basis of discipline.  If not what is the purpose?  If you have a best practice, you have something to measure and use for oversight and/or training.

§    It’s a great idea to distinguish between an ethics opinion or a best practice.

§    Any writing that the Board produces will be used in ways we may not have intended.  It will become a quasi-recommendation.  The Board could amend the Ethics Opinion Regulation to include the provision for best practices to be written by the Board.

§    What are ethics?  What is a code of conduct?

§    Ethics:  making decisions that do the most good with the least damage.

Under the current regulations, does the Board have the authority to issue best practices?

The Board should have authority under the training program to write best practices, but the Board has not written the Training Regulation.

It was moved and seconded that the Board write the Training Regulation in order to solidify authority for the board to issue best practices.  The authority shall be under the training section of GR 23 and shall be cross-referenced in the Ethics Advisory Opinion Regulation.  There will be no discipline for the violation of a best practice.  Motion passed.

Proposed Regulation 406.12 was included in the Board materials.  It was moved and properly seconded to adopt Reg. 406.12 with the following revisions:

Remove the word two.

add at the end “unless approved by the court.”

not delegable is a problematic sentence.

Friendly amendment to strike the last sentence

Motion passed – will be posted for 30 days.

It was moved and seconded to reconsider Regulation 406.12.  The revision was as follows:

While it may be appropriate and necessary to retain the services of knowledgeable individuals or entities to assist in the performance of duties, it is the ultimate responsibility of the guardian to protect and preserve the guardianship estate.  [With the rest accept for the last sentence. ]

Motion passed.

Final assignments:

Schmidt and Craven comprise the committee to write training objectives.

AOC is to draft the Training Regulation for Board approval and include the Board responsibility for the manual.

O’Brien will draft a request for statements of interest in serving on the Board.

The Board adjoined until the next meeting which is scheduled for July 10, 2006. 9 a.m.- noon at the Kilroy Center in Seatac, WA.