(Missouri News Service) SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A program that works with children with disabilities and their families is expanding again in Missouri.

Capable Kids and Families was launched in 2001 in Rolla as a way to help deal with isolation, exclusion, financial hardships, insurance restrictions and difficulty accessing treatment.

Bill Dent, executive director of Family and Community Trust, said it was so successful that it branched out to other cities in the state, with the latest planned for Springfield. Dent said it’s a unique program because there’s a big focus on helping parents of these children realize they’re not alone, by matching them up with other families who are facing the same issues.

“Creating that network and connecting those parents together, and then they bond and create a small community so the isolation leaves and they have a network to surround them and a support group,” he said.

The new program in Springfield is starting this month, and Dent said before it even launched, there was a waiting list. During therapy, children with disabilities often use equipment such as positioning devices, switches for adaptive toys or sensory-integration tools. Capable Kids and Families loans out the equipment so kids can use them at home as well.

Jean Darnell, executive director of Community Partnership in Rolla, said it allows children to learn more quickly, but also includes home visitation and parent networking.

“We try to make the parents a part of the team,” she said. “Oftentimes when you are in a situation, you have all these specialists telling you, ‘Your child can do this, your child can’t do this,’ and you just feel like a sideliner.”

Capable Kids and Families services are provided through grant funding from the Missouri Department of Social Services.

According to the MDC, Thursday, March 1, trout fishing begins at Bennett Spring State Park near Lebanon, Montauk State Park near Licking, Roaring River State Park near Cassville, and Maramec Spring Park near St. James. The catch-and-keep season at the trout parks runs through Oct. 31.

MDC operates trout hatcheries at all four parks. To help predict angler turnout on opening day, hatchery staff rely on permit records going back more than 70 years. Montauk, Bennett Spring, and Roaring River hatchery staff expect crowds of about 2,000 anglers at each location and Maramec Spring staff are planning for a crowd of about 1,000. Based on these predictions, hatchery staff will stock three trout per expected angler on opening day for a total of more than 21,000 fish averaging around a foot in length. The hatcheries will also stock a mix of “lunkers” ranging in three to 10 pounds.

“We have plenty of fish for this year’s trout season,” said MDC Fisheries Division Chief Brian Canaday.

Trout anglers will need a daily trout tag to fish in Missouri’s trout parks. Daily trout tags can only be purchased at each of the four trout parks. Missouri residents 16 through 64 need a fishing permit in addition to the daily tag. Nonresidents 16 and older also need a fishing permit.

MDC stocks more than 800,000 trout annually at the state’s four trout parks and approximately 1.5 million annually statewide. Trout anglers’ spend more than $100 million each year in the Show-Me-State, which generates more than $180 million in business activity, supports more than 2,300 jobs and creates more than $70 million dollars in wages. About 30 percent of Missouri trout anglers come from other states, so a substantial portion of trout fishing expenditures is “new money” for the state’s economy.

(Missourinet) – Signs have been posted at some Missouri Capitol entrances stating concealed carry permit holders can now bring guns inside, but firearms are prohibited in legislative chambers and hearing rooms.

State Rep. Nick Marshall (R-Parkville) is pleased with the change, but said he thinks citizens should also be able to take guns into those areas currently restricted.

“I’m certainly happy that the law is being followed now. Let’s not be hypocrites. Let’s not create a special political class that has its own safe zone when we say that safe zones are bad,” Marshall said. “That seems to be the message from the Capitol over the past few years is that we think good law-abiding, honest citizens being armed is a good thing.”

Marshall said he wants to change state law to go a step further and also allow guns in the chambers and hearing rooms. He plans to file a bill to address that issue in the coming days.

“To say that ‘oh yeah you can have your firearm and you can be safe out in public but you can’t be safe when you come around us.’ Come on,” Marshall said.

Metal detectors were added at some Capitol entrances last month, prompting Marshall to offer his gun to those citizens while visiting the Capitol. Under the latest change, he won’t go as far as letting them drop their guns off in his office.

“I don’t think that that’s really what my place is, as a state Representative, to be a safekeeping place for everybody’s firearm,” Marshall said.

According to Marshall, those taking guns into the Capitol’s chambers and meeting places can’t be charged with a crime. They will simply be asked to leave.

Senator Jill Schupp (D- Creve Coeur) says “anyone, legislator or not, coming into the state house and carrying weapons, with so many children around, defies common sense. I feel very confident that the trained law enforcement professionals who work in our Capitol are exceedingly capable of keeping us safe. Let’s not interfere with their ability to continue to do their jobs well.”

To view the Capitol security policy regarding firearms, click here.

(Missourinet) – Missouri’s new Department of Corrections leader addressed a legislative committee Thursday.

DOC Director Anne Presythe was named in December by Governor Greitens to replace George Lombardi, who was dogged by reports of abuse as well as sexual and verbal harassment among prison employees.

In recent years, worker complaints were routinely ignored, and those which escalated to a high level were muzzled by big dollar payouts from the state.

The Pitch newspaper documented cases between 2012-2016 where those who spoke out received settlement payments and judgments totaling almost $7.6 million from the state, in exchange for keeping quiet.

During the first six months of 2016, the DOC was ordered to pay more than $4 million to victims harassed because of sex, religion or disability.

As a result of the scandal, Missouri House Speaker Todd Richardson (R-Poplar Bluff) announced he would form a committee to investigate the allegations.

Presythe spoke in front of that panel, the House Subcommittee on Corrections Workforce Environment and Conduct, where she emphasized that moving forward, there will be zero tolerance for reporting harassment and retaliation, and zero tolerance for responding to complaints.  She said there are practices she will introduce to fix the problem.

“Holding staff accountable, training and education, helping then understand what professionalism in the workplace looks like, and then holding them accountable for that,” Presythe said. “Those are the things that are going to help us make a change.”

Republican House member Jim Hansen of Frankford chairs the committee. He said he was impressed that she stressed the need to address employee morale and job promotion as well as zero tolerance.

“I think if you could even fix all three of those, you’re going to take the state a long ways from the employees standpoint that’ll be working in our corrections department.”

The Northeast Correctional Center in Bowling Green is located in Hansen’s district. He noted all the members of the five person committee looking into the DOC scandal have prisons in their districts.

In her address to the lawmakers, Presythe said she wants to move the agency beyond its traditional function of overseeing “custody and control” of inmates.

She plans to have corrections officers engage with prisoners more closely to identify those who are acting out, and to be role models for inmate behavior.  She said staffing levels will need to be boosted to achieve such goals.

“If we’re going to ask our corrections officers to do more than just control and custody, they’re going to have to have more time to spend engaging with the offender population,” Presythe said.

Presythe isn’t sure how the personnel needs will be addressed, but said she thinks more state money will be needed to expand the role of corrections officers.

When asked if low wages are an issue in suppressing employee motivation, she said increasing pay is important, but not the driving force in improving morale.

“I think that folks want to be valued,” Presythe said. “They want to be taken seriously, they want to be appreciated, they want to be recognized, they want to be acknowledged for the good things.”

Presythe said an improved work environment will help employees, and will also set a better example for inmates who’ll be coming back into communities.

Committee member Bruce Franks Jr. (D-St. Louis) brought up inmate treatment as an issue he had knowledge of first-hand. He said problems in the corrections system’s healthcare, which is run by Corizon Systems, has resulted in numerous inmate deaths.  Franks said his uncle, who was misdiagnosed while incarcerated in Missouri, died shortly after being released.

Democratic House Minority Floor Leader Gail McCann Beatty, also a harsh critic of the DOC scandal, attended the committee meeting.

(Missourinet) – State Rep. Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston) and others testified for needle exchange programs Wednesday at a Missouri Health and Mental Health Policy Committee meeting in Jefferson City.

Rehder, who has introduced legislation that would make these programs legal in Missouri, testified that if addicts have access to clean hypodermic needles it would reduce the transmission of diseases like Hepatitis C and HIV.

The committee did not vote on Wednesday.

There are already three organizations in Missouri that provide clean needles to addicts. Kansas City Care Clinic has run a needle exchange program for 30 years.

House Bill 88 would exempt organizations registered with the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services from drug paraphernalia laws that prevent them from distributing clean needles and syringes.

Aaron Laxton with Saint Louis-based non-profit Criminal Justice Ministry testified in favor of the bill. His organization is the third to start a needle exchange program in Missouri and has been providing needles to addicts for six months now.

Laxton says loosening laws restricting hypodermic needles could save the state money in the long run.

“If you look at most of the individuals we are serving, they are already enrolled in other social service programs. That may be Medicaid, that may be TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Famlies), that may be whatever,” Laxton said. “So when we actually get them into care, we actually do see a high incidence of people being able being able to obtain work, being able to come off services.”

Laxton says hepatitis treatment currently costs Missouri $96 million a year, and that better access to needles would reduce the number of cases and save the state money. He says exchange programs usually spend roughly $50 a month per patient and that funding would come from organizations such as the Elton John Foundation, AIDS United and the federal government — not the state.

State Rep. Keith Frederick (R-Rolla), who chairs the House Health and Mental Health Policy Committee, is concerned that people may be more likely to use heroin with more needles available.

He says that could become worse if a prescription drug monitoring program is set up in Missouri.

“I worry that there may be some folks that would be caught up in, ‘Hey it’s too expensive to buy the oxycodone which is like 60 bucks a pill, and you can get heroin for 10 bucks and — by the way — it’s a clean needle,'” Frederick said. “I worry that is too much of an invitation to somebody to go to the easier route and the cheaper route. So I think we should at least have our eyes open and consider that possibility.”

Frederick says he would need more information on needle exchanges before he came out for or against them.

Rep. Rehder introduced a bill that would exempt needle exchanges from paraphernalia restrictions in March of 2016 that was not adopted.

(Missourinet) – More than 200 gun violence prevention advocates visited the Missouri Capitol Wednesday to urge members of the state legislature to oppose bills filed this session that would further relax Missouri’s gun regulations.

Kristin Bowen with the group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America says proposed changes would allow people to carry hidden, loaded handguns in places like Missouri schools, colleges, hospitals and daycare centers.

“It’s very concerning. The public safety risk and the risk to students is what motivates me to be here today,” Bowen said.

The group includes women, men, concealed carry permits holders and those from the law enforcement and religious communities.

“Where the growth has happened in Moms [Demand Action for Gun Sense in America] has actually been in the rural or smaller communities. We have a group in Springfield. We have a group in Cape Girardeau. It’s not just the big cities,” Bowen said. “I think there’s a perception that this is an issue that’s really only relevant to urban people and it’s really not.”

State Rep. Andrew McDaniel (R-Deering) of southeast Missouri is proposing to allow those who can legally own a firearm or other weapon to carry one concealed into places other than:

*detention centers,
*prisons,
*jails,
*airport security areas,
*places where they are prohibited by federal law, and
*private property that has signs forbidding such weapons.

In 2016, the Missouri legislature passed sweeping changes to Missouri’s gun regulations. The law allows those to carry concealed guns without requiring a permit and lets people who are guests in a home use deadly force to defend themselves in that home. It also allows lethal force to be used without retreating by a person who thinks a reasonable threat exists.

The legislation also allows Missourians found guilty of a domestic violence misdemeanor or who were the subject of a protection order to have concealed carry permits. Rep. Donna Lichtenegger (R- Cape Girardeau) has filed a bill this session that’s meant to fix the loophole.

Bowen, of Columbia, says membership has increased since that law passed. The group held a similar event at the Missouri Capitol last year with about 60 members showing up.

(Missourinet) – Governor Greitens (R) has appointed Ernie Rhodes as Missouri’s Emergency Management Agency director and Tim Bean to serve as the state fire marshal. The Governor made that announcement Wednesday before a crowd of first responders at the St. Louis Fire Academy.

“When our nation faced its most devastating attacks during September 11th, Ernie went to New York as part of Missouri’s Urban Rescue team, just two days after September 11th,” Greitens said.

Rhodes, who currently serves as fire chief for West County EMS, said he is grateful for this opportunity.

“I’ve been in the fire service for 32 years. I started as a young lad in Desloge, Missouri, as a junior fireman. Two weeks after that, I realized how much I loved helping people,” Rhodes said.

Bean currently serves as the West Plains fire chief.

“I wake up every morning and I say I want to be the best boots on the ground. I would challenge it. Let’s take that motto on,” Bean said.

The governor also delivered a message to all of the state’s first responders.

“No matter how cold it gets. No matter how dark the night, they’re willing to go out and to put their lives on the line for all of us. We want to let every first responder in the state of Missouri know that we’ve got their back,” Greitens said.

After the announcement, the governor, Bean, and Rhodes participated in training exercises with city firefighters.