Story first appeared in:

HUGO — While kids meander among the stacks at the Hugo Public Library, 5-year-old Letty Nuffer sits cross-legged at a table concentrating on her language skills using a borrowed laptop computer that displays a fun video to show her how to pronounce consonant blends.

Thanks to a pilot project in telehealth, Letty can access therapy for her speech delay without a four-hour round trip to Denver for an in-person appointment. By checking out an equipment kit designed to facilitate a wide range of health care consultations, Letty’s mom, Kali Nuffer, can connect directly with her therapist as well as to specially designed video lessons.

The library, already an almost daily destination for Nuffer’s family, now has become the conduit for virtual doctor’s appointments for all four of her kids — just one more service that the facility offers beyond the traditional resources for residents on the Eastern Plains. Kristin Allen, the library’s director, says this year’s addition of telehealth has started to become, well, contagious.

“I’ve had several people recently call and say, ‘How can I do this? How can I get one of those kits?’” she says. “Just come down and get a library card. That’s all you need.” 

For many Coloradans, today’s library card unlocks a lot more than books or even an ever-expanding array of digital material available from 113 public library jurisdictions across the state — and that’s particularly significant for relatively far-flung rural communities whose smaller systems account for nearly 75% of the total.

The way libraries serve the public has evolved significantly over the last several years — a trend that only accelerated during the COVID pandemic, says State Librarian Nicolle Davies. She notes that libraries “leaned into technology” for the entire range of patrons, whether that involved teaching grandparents how to use video chat apps, preparing job seekers for a 21st-century workforce or helping kids advance their digital literacy.

“For years, we were really freaked out that everybody identifies us as just books, but we’re so much more,” Davies says. “And the reality is we’ve been in the (digital) space long enough now that we’re comfortable saying, ‘Yeah, we are still about books and we’re about all these other things as well.’ So it’s very surprising when people visit libraries today and find out what we’re doing and what we have, because the perception still can be outdated and antiquated.”

The pandemic necessitated a number of innovations that worked around COVID restrictions, and many of those remain. Davies, who lives in Douglas County, recalls checking out a meat-smoking kit from her local library that came complete with recipes and seasonings. She also checked out an outdoor version of the block-stacking game Jenga for the family to play.

This story first appeared in
Colorado Sunday, a premium magazine newsletter for members.

Experience the best in Colorado news at a slower pace, with thoughtful articles, unique adventures and a reading list that’s a perfect fit for a Sunday morning.

SUBSCRIBE

“There were just so many ways that the library got really creative on how to provide services to people during the pandemic,” she says.

The pandemic also elevated the role of libraries when it came to digital resources like ebooks, audiobooks, streaming movies and music, notes Sherri Baca, executive director of the Pueblo City-County Library District. She said her district reallocated its 2020 budget to pump up funding to digital vendors, embracing the “library at home” concept that meant buying fewer hard-copy books in order to meet the needs of homebound patrons with digital offerings.

“Readers are reading, but the formats are a little different, which is great,” Baca says. “I think that that’s what libraries are supposed to do, move with the times and be very relevant to our users, and get them what they need when they need it.”

That credo has provided scaffolding for public libraries’ ongoing evolution, a transformation forged in times of a devastating virus and deafening political noise — both challenging factors as library workers face burnout on one hand and, on the other, an invigorating reimagining of their role. Pushing back against the headwinds of censorship, libraries have sought to serve as patches in the social safety net, channels closing the distance between patrons and health care, and myriad other functions — while still navigating the shifting demands for information and entertainment in all its digital and analog forms.

Digital content use was escalating even before the pandemic, and COVID ratcheted the demand even higher. But for the Denver Public Library, there’s still high interest not only in bound books, but also older media formats such as CDs and DVDs, which remain popular among those who may not have access to the latest streaming technology.

“We think that’s an equity issue,” says Michelle Jeske, the city librarian and executive director of the Denver Public Library. “A lot of people still don’t have high-speed internet access or may not have great devices for downloading ebooks or streaming videos. Some people might still have a VCR or a Blu-ray player, so we’re still seeing use of those formats. And that’s why we’re continuing to buy or support that part of our collection.”

The specter of censorship

In any format, library collections nationwide have become the target of challenges — some from individuals, others orchestrated by politically motivated groups that have brought issues surrounding intellectual freedom prominently into the public discourse.

Sept. 27 | 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m.

The libraries of the past are gone. So what are they now?

Remember when a library’s search engine was its card catalog? A lot has changed since then — from the materials to the technology to the scope of libraries’ very mission. Sun writer and book editor Kevin Simpson moderates a panel of experts for a conversation about the changes — and challenges — to a venerable American institution.

Join us for the panel at SunFest 2024.

Buy Tickets

Colorado isn’t without its conflicts, but has been far less affected than many other states. Still, lawmakers in the last legislative session passed a measure designed to reinforce the policies and procedures Colorado’s public libraries employ not only to acquire and use materials, but to deal with challenges to their content. 

James LaRue, executive director of the Garfield County Public Library District, has dealt with more than a thousand such challenges over a career in library management that includes stints as director of the Douglas County libraries as well as with the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. His book “On Censorship” explores the motives behind the challenges, which have come from across the political spectrum, and the dangers of book banning.

“It has gone from the one or two people that get upset by running across something in a library to being more centrally coordinated,” he says, noting that nationally many of the recent objections stemmed from both isolation during the pandemic that pulled some down conspiracy rabbit holes and political strategy aimed at motivating conservatives for the 2022 midterm elections — most often by objecting to books with LGBTQ content. 

Poll after poll says this is a deeply unpopular view, that 70% of either party is opposed to censorship. But why do they keep at it? Because it seems to work. It gets people riled up, and as always in America we are both obsessed with and repelled by sex.

— James LaRue, executive director of the Garfield County Public Library District

“Poll after poll says this is a deeply unpopular view, that 70% of either party is opposed to censorship,” LaRue says. “But why do they keep at it? Because it seems to work. It gets people riled up, and as always in America we are both obsessed with and repelled by sex.”

Although he notes that other states have experienced more frequent challenges, and have seen legislative efforts aimed at even criminalizing anyone who provides access to certain materials, about five states have passed what he calls “anti-censorship legislation.”

“Colorado,” he adds, “is a much happier environment.”

In particular, he notes the new state law’s emphasis on the “request for reconsideration” that challenges must go through that effectively slows the process and prevents knee-jerk reactions. The new law requires that library boards establish a written policy for reconsideration, and lists specific standards that, among several other things, require they consider the perspectives of marginalized groups.

Davies, the state librarian, says that the rancor that spills over from book challenges now appears to have gotten personal. For years, she recalls, surveys on the most trusted professions in America found librarians ranked near the top, along with firefighters. But in the last few years she has been troubled to hear the integrity of her peers disparaged, even if the spitefulness seems less prevalent in Colorado.

“We’re all librarians at the end of the day,” she says, “and so when institutions like the American Library Association are getting challenged, and everybody’s lumping our profession into having this agenda of grooming children and being pedophiles, it’s just been something I never thought I would have seen in this work.” 

The Pueblo district has had a request for reconsideration policy in effect for more than 10 years, and the passage of the new law required them to simply tweak the timeline for how often an item could be reconsidered, Baca says — from once in a 12-month period to once every two years, the most frequent allowed by the law.

Although she welcomes the attention to the issue of censorship, she estimates that in the nine years she’s been with the library system it has received only one or two requests per year for material to be reconsidered.

In Denver, Jeske estimates she sees “zero to one challenge a year — knock on wood.” Even before the new state law, DPL changed its policy to only allow Denver residents to challenge materials to block organized national challenges.

Providing a social safety net

The pandemic proved challenging in many ways, and its aftermath revealed all sorts of societal issues that had always been present but suddenly were exacerbated. Think homelessness, mental health issues and substance abuse, among others. And libraries, particularly in population centers, found themselves nudged to become more engaged when it comes to connecting those in need with social services.

“That’s nothing new, especially for the Denver Public Library being in this urban setting,” Jeske says. “I think the pandemic demonstrated to us and the community how vital we are as a public space and a place of access — for learning, for knowledge, for technology and connection to the world.”

Not to mention for clean water and a restroom.

Since 2015, the Denver Public Library has had at least one social worker on staff to serve that population. That lone hire nine years ago “seemed like a win,” Jeske says, but soon it became clear that one wouldn’t be enough. Now there’s a Community Resources team of at least 10 people, some of them “peer navigators,” people whose experience mirrors those they’re serving.

The team’s training has spilled over to the entire frontline staff so they’re better equipped to handle issues like security, de-escalation, mental health and first aid.

“We’re one of the pioneers in that space,” Jeske says.

Increasing concern over drug abuse at libraries surfaced early last year with a string of suburban Denver library closures over possible contamination from methamphetamine fumes. (There were no reports of patrons affected by exposure.) Contamination became an issue at one branch in the Pueblo district that required action to remediate exposure to the public, Baca says — though fortuitously, the branch was already scheduled to close for renovations. 

But just as libraries have adapted to community needs, they’ve also had to adopt safety measures. In Pueblo, that means installing environmental sensors in the restrooms that monitor the air in real time to detect potential hazards and immediately notify staff.

“A lot of preventative kinds of stuff,” Baca says, “and just being really active in making sure people understand what the library rules are.”

Pueblo’s library system saw another vehicle for meeting the community’s needs. Although most of the district’s facilities are clustered in the city, Baca launched the telehealth pilot in 2,000-population Colorado City, about a half-hour south of the city limits. Kits similar to the ones used in Hugo and elsewhere are available, with the added feature of a hot spot that can provide patrons mobile internet access in an area where service can be lacking — thanks in part to grant money from the Federal Communications Commission during the pandemic.

Pueblo recently received a $250,000 Mellon Foundation grant for a project aimed at collecting digital archives to preserve the local culture and history of areas that may not have the wherewithal to host the material themselves. As the regional hub for this effort, the Pueblo library will be reaching out to communities across southern Colorado to solicit audio, video or photo files that can be uploaded to help maintain the historical record.

She holds out both projects as evidence of the evolving state of public libraries as they match resources with pressing local concerns.

“So it goes back to the social supports,” Baca says. “Where are the gaps? Can the library be relevant?”

Digital literacy, broadband and health

Kieran Hixon suspected something was up when he took part in Gov. Jared Polis’ broadband initiative and learned that rural areas use telehealth at far lower rates than urban centers. The trend seemed counterintuitive, given the scarcity of medical services in rural areas.

A subsequent partnership with the state Office of eHealth Innovation explored melding telehealth services with libraries that, especially in small towns, are considered anchor institutions when it comes to broadband. And it turns out that one of the hurdles to implementing telehealth in those communities is digital literacy. 

Hixon, the rural and small library consultant within the state department of education, saw the gaps and immediately knew libraries could be relevant by combining their core mission — namely literacy, including the digital kind — and their unique ability to provide access to broadband in far-flung locations. He started calling around to small libraries to ask what they thought and found that while some were already hearing about patrons’ health concerns, they didn’t have the resources to assist them. 

“I called this one librarian and she says, ‘People are coming in, and I just don’t know how to help them. And I could sure use help to do it better,’” Hixon says. “I was like, OK, we’re onto something.”  

In partnership with Ashley Heathfield, a telehealth project manager at the Office of eHealth Innovation, Hixon combed data to find the counties with the worst health outcomes that were farthest from medical services. Then they targeted libraries in those counties and sent out an email to see who was interested.

Eventually 17 library jurisdictions, encompassing 24 buildings, signed on to the pilot project, which has been running for less than a year. Early findings include greater use of the in-library spaces than the kits. 

But in Hugo, director Allen began a “soft launch” last spring, and then started spreading the word. Two portable kits have been the most popular, with Allen scanning a barcode just as she would a book to check them out. Patrons normally have 24 to 48 hours to use the kits, though Allen remains flexible. She also fitted a mobile desk that patrons can roll into the library’s board room to use for in-library telehealth appointments with privacy.

Each kit contains a laptop computer with features like headphones with individual volume controls for the hard of hearing and large-print keyboards for the vision impaired, and an ergonomic mouse. It also includes a ring light, scale, blood pressure monitor (including cuff sizes from child to extra large adult), pulse oximeter and forehead thermometer. The kit includes a wireless hot spot to provide an internet connection to a health care provider.

Getting people to realize that libraries are available for more than just books is changing a thought process.

— Kristin Allen, Hugo Public Library director

Allen estimates that the portable kits get checked out five or six times a month, a gradual increase as the area’s “very traditional” population becomes familiar with telehealth as an option and gets used to the idea that their library can be a resource to pursue it.

“Getting people to realize that libraries are available for more than just books is changing a thought process,” Allen says. “They still get surprised when you say, ‘Oh, yeah, you can come in and make copies.’ And then you throw in being able to check out a telehealth kit, and they’re like, ‘A what?’ It’s just a whole new thing for a lot of people to wrap their heads around.”

Librarians going … and coming 

As libraries have undergone mind-bending changes, there’s been some evidence of burnout among librarians even as another generation has embraced the job for new reasons.

Davies, the state librarian, says she’s seen signs of burnout particularly among those frontline staff who deal directly with the public. She also notes what appears to be a mass retirement among those in library leadership roles, though it’s unclear whether that’s a response to librarians coming under attack over issues of content, the overarching lack of civility from the public or just demographics naturally thinning the ranks.

“Regardless of why it’s happening,” she says, “it is happening.” 

But she adds that a lot of younger people have been attracted to librarianship, prompting a spike within some programs as students seek advanced degrees in library and information science, because the shifting role of libraries has in some ways recast the profession as social justice work.

“It’s an equalizer in a community,” Davies says. “It serves everybody.” 

Allen, 44, first worked as an auto insurance claims adjuster in California, but about 14 years ago migrated to Colorado when her company moved its call center to Colorado Springs. She eventually moved to Limon after her husband took a job at the correctional facility outside of town.

With a degree in early childhood education, Allen did day care in her home. She often took her own kids to the Limon Memorial Library for story time with library director Lucille Reimer.

Describing herself as “one of those odd introverts that likes people,” Allen soon found that at the library she was completely in her element, and that comfort zone fed an innate desire to help people. It wasn’t long before Reimer, who needed some extra help, offered her a part-time job. So a few days each week, Allen learned that being a librarian involved a lot more than checking out books.

“It’s a service that you’re providing a community,” she says. “And it just spoke to my heart.”

After about a year, the position overseeing the Hugo library opened up. Reimer urged her understudy to apply. Allen hesitated — she didn’t have that much experience. But Reimer convinced her to take a shot, and she got the job.

It’s part-time, like many library jobs in rural areas, but that meant Allen could continue helping Reimer on a morning schedule in Limon before heading over to run the Hugo library in the afternoon. Now, Reimer is retiring and passing the reins in Limon to Katie Zipperer, who has been directing the library’s bookmobile, another crucial tool for serving the 2,500 square miles of Lincoln County.

“We try to do everything we can together,” says Allen, who’s in her third year directing the Hugo library. “So when we make flyers, when we do programs, it’s always the three of us working together. So it’s been great to share resources.”

When she attended CALCON, the annual gathering of library staffers from all over the state, Allen saw the world opening up. She knew she wanted even her tiny facility to be about much more than books, and suddenly she learned that bigger (and better funded) libraries were doing all sorts of things to serve their populations.

“It just opened my eyes,” she says. “When I saw what other, bigger city libraries were doing, I thought, ‘We can do that.’ I was like a blank sheet when I got here.”

While Hugo’s size and budget might be limiting, Allen’s imagination was not. She noticed the array of “tool kits” that other libraries offered — materials for crafts, sewing machines, yoga, even memory resources for Alzheimer’s patients. She went to her board and told them that Hugo wasn’t keeping up. The library could do more.

So she started small, packaging various school materials in backpacks that students could check out. After those started gaining popularity, Allen moved to providing copying services and printing services that could produce brochures, flyers and posters. Word started filtering through town that the library could offer some extras like binding and laminating, printing and faxing — Allen even started providing a notary service.

With the Lincoln County Courthouse nearby, services like those proved particularly popular.

“We’re trying to do small things,” Allen says. “We don’t have tons of room but we can add on services to make things easier for people.”

When it comes to the future, Davies figures that Colorado is “just scratching the surface” in terms of creative ways that libraries can serve their patrons.  

“Ten years ago, we didn’t have a library of things where you can check out tools and you can check out cake pans, and you can check out VR headsets or GoPro cameras,” Davies says. “Whether you’re checking out gardening tools because you live in an apartment, but you have a gardening box, you don’t need to own these things. But how cool is it that you can check it out from the library?”

AURORA — On Wednesday evenings at the edge of a wide parking lot in Aurora, there is a forest green pop-up tent with five large, scraped-up coolers stacked nearby. The coolers hold 27 bags of fresh produce, harvested that morning at Switch Gears Farm in Longmont. 

The arugula gets picked first, Vanita Patel, co-founder and co-owner of Switch Gears explained. The farmers chop the spicy leaves down early in the morning while the air is still cool, soak them in cold water for an hour then spin them dry, rinse again and bag it all up. The potatoes and shallots are pulled straight out of the ground and thrown into the bags — the dirt on their skin helps them keep fresh longer. There are heirloom tomatoes and two shades of beets. There are also a couple of plump, round Baingan eggplants that Patel is especially proud of. It took her four years to find the seeds, she said.

“We take our varietals very seriously,” she told a group of stakeholders and policymakers who were circled up next to the tent Wednesday, including state Sen. Rhonda Fields and a district leader from U.S. Rep. Jason Crow’s office.

The bags of produce were to be handed out during a two-hour window to people enrolled in the Women, Infants and Children federal food assistance program. That produce is paid for by Nourish Colorado, a food equity and advocacy group, using funds from the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, known as the LFPA. 

These funds have bolstered local agriculture and supported low-cost food distribution for the past three years, but they’re about to run out with no replacement in sight. And that’s why the government workers were gathered in the Aurora parking lot, to hear from Nourish and the farmers about what comes next. 

What is the LFPA?

The LFPA is a pandemic-era relief program overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nationally, the program has issued more than $900 million to state governments, tribes and territories for food banks, pantries and distribution sites to buy produce from local farmers.

Colorado was one of the first states to receive funding, and over the past three years has received and distributed close to $10 million in LFPA funds. The state has passed the money on to 35 grantees in the food supply chain.

Two things set the LFPA apart from other food security programs. First, its direct support of local agriculture. Grantees are required to purchase food from producers within 400 miles of the distribution site. 

Second, the funds are intended to support “socially disadvantaged producers,” which, according to the USDA, includes veterans, women, people of color and people with disabilities, among other groups.

According to the Colorado Department of Human Services, of the 220 producers who sold to LFPA grantees, 147 of them, or 67%, are considered “socially disadvantaged.”

The middle section

That 67% includes Patel, the Switch Gears farmer. Or, in her words, “I check a lot of the boxes, in terms of diversity.” 

One thing that Patel thinks needs to be reconciled between the LFPA grantees, like food banks, and the small, “socially disadvantaged” farmers is that these farms don’t always have the resources to provide cheap food to a large community in need.

“I can’t sell these boxes for $10 or $15. There is already so little profit being made,” she said. “But when food banks get these grants, there’s this comparison to big farms. They can give much more produce, and it’s like, ‘yes, because they’ve been in Colorado for 100 years, and they own their land, and they own their water rights.’”

The ability to scale doesn’t just require more land, it also requires equipment and infrastructure. Things like cold storage, packaging facilities and delivery vans.

“I don’t need my own delivery van,” Patel clarified. She thinks there’s a way for organizations and small farmers to collaborate when it comes to these improvements.

“Up in Boulder County, we’ll literally text each other, ‘storm’s coming your way,’ because we can see each others’ properties,” she said. “If I had access to a delivery van, or cold storage I could share it with other farmers. That would be so much better.”

This sentiment was echoed by Maggie Kinneberg, a researcher for the Donnell-Kay Foundation, a nonprofit that supports funding for food systems work. An area that is overlooked — in food systems in general, not limited to LFPA recipients — is what she calls the “middle” segment of a farm-to-fork journey.

“I think there’s a friction point not just for new farms, but also for those that are established and looking to scale, that they don’t have access to infrastructure,”  Kinneberg said. “And when I say infrastructure, I mean buildings and equipment, but I also mean some of the technical systems like inventory management, accounting, HR, some of those basic things that you need to run a functioning business.”

Two different models

Although the reporting process is standardized by the USDA — that is, reporting who and what the funds are spent on — pretty much everything else is up to the states and their grantees.

Colorado decided to use an open application system, inviting food producers and distributors to apply for the nearly $10 million to spend directly on food during three rounds of funding.

Nourish Colorado worked with their partner distributors, places like the East Denver Food Hub, to apply for separate grants, stretching the money further and using the established sites.

Another recipient, Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado, created an entirely new system to distribute nearly $1.8 million in LFPA funds.

Now in its 50th year, Care and Share has the traditional food bank model down pat. They buy in bulk from larger farms, like Yoder Family Farms in Trinidad, truck the food to one of three distribution sites, sort it, then ship it out to 293 food bank partners.

But with the LFPA’s emphasis on small, socially disadvantaged farms, Care and Share needed a way to buy food in smaller quantities from the often isolated farms around southern Colorado.

So they took the distribution centers out of the equation. Instead, they gave local food bank partners a budget to spend at the selected farms. 

For example, if Care and Share had $50,000 in LFPA funds for “Farm A” and there are five local food bank partners in that area, then each food bank will have $10,000 to spend on food at that specific farm, Nate Springer, president and CEO of Care and Share, explained. 

Not only does this cut down on infrastructure and transportation needs, but it also gives the food banks autonomy to decide which foods are culturally relevant to their communities.

“We work from Monument to New Mexico, and from Utah to Kansas. There is a lot of diversity in that area,” Springer said. “So when we find these farmers, I don’t want it to be up to Care and Share to figure out what our partners (the food banks) need. They know better than we do.”

What happens next

When and whether the LFPA funds continue depends on how the election shakes out in November, and what the House and Senate Agriculture committees look like (Colorado Rep. Yadira Caraveo serves on the House committee, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet serves on the Senate committee), and who the Secretary of Agriculture is in January, said Wendy Moschetti, executive director of Nourish Colorado. “There’s lots of different depends in there,” she said. 

The biggest “depend” of all is whether Congress is able to pass the updated farm bill, a bill that sets agriculture and food policy for five-year periods, and is currently in limbo at the Capitol. 

Meanwhile, grant recipients in Colorado have spent almost 70% of the LFPA funds, and with one more major harvest season in the fall, the state suspects the money will be gone by the end of the year. 

“Long story short is we need continuation of the current LFPA right now, that will last us until we have a permanent program,” Moschetti said. That’s why she invited the political group to hang out in an Aurora parking lot, watching mothers grab bags full of fresh greens and purple potatoes and tiny tomatoes, while their kids snacked on free peaches that a local farmer dropped off.

Springer, of Care and Share, is also eyeing the end of the funding, and has raised about $100,000 in order to continue Care and Share’s new partnerships. He would not name specific foundations that made donations.

Moschetti said that Nourish Colorado’s backup plan is similar to Springer’s: Look to philanthropy.

“I don’t think it’s philanthropy’s job to deal with things the federal government and the state government should be doing, but when there are gaps in government funding, that is exactly when philanthropy needs to step in,” Moschetti said. “And we’re facing a really big cliff right now.”

Homelessness in Denver increased by 12% in the past year, but for only the second time in recent history, the number of people living outside has decreased, according to the results of an annual count released Wednesday. 

The number of people living in shelters, transitional housing, tents and on the streets of Denver climbed to 6,539 from 5,818 the previous year. In the seven-county metro area, homelessness rose 10% to 9,977 people. 

In Denver, the good news is that there are fewer people sleeping in tents and on the streets after a massive effort to move people indoors. 

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who campaigned on a promise to house 1,000 people by the end of his first year in office, said the drop in unsheltered homelessness in the city was among the largest in the nation, in line with Houston and better than Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.

There were 1,273 people sleeping outside in Denver on the January night volunteers and outreach workers conducted the count, down from 1,423 a year prior. 

And as of Wednesday, there are 117 tents in the city, down from 242 when the “point-in-time” count was taken, the mayor’s office said. The city has cleared 17 encampments and closed 350 blocks of downtown to camping under the mayor’s homelessness initiative. Critics have accused the city of offering people temporary shelter instead of more permanent options. 

“We have always believed that homelessness is a solvable problem, and now we have the data to prove it,” Johnston said in a triumphant news release. “Denverites should be proud to live in a city that responds to homelessness with compassion.”

Not counted in the survey: the 4,300 new migrants from mainly South America who were sleeping in city-funded shelters on the night of the count. 

The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, which organizes the annual count required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said that leaving migrants out of the count was the best way to determine “the most accurate information of those experiencing homelessness on a single night.” 

The number of people living in shelters in Denver grew by 20% throughout the year, however.

In the seven-county area, the number of people sleeping outside increased by 5.6%, to 2,919. The number of chronically homeless — people who have not had a home for at least a year — rose by 16% and the number of homeless families grew by nearly 50%, to 3,136 from 2,101.

Volunteers spread across the metro area, throughout Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson counties, from sundown Jan. 22 to sundown Jan. 23, tallying and interviewing people in shelters and outside. 

Johnston said the data shows the city needs to work harder at preventing homelessness in the first place, as well as expanding family shelter and permanent housing options. The Denver City Council is scheduled to vote next week on whether to ask voters to approve a sales tax to generate $100 million annually for affordable housing. The Affordable Denver Fund would pay for 44,000 units of affordable housing over the next 10 years, the mayor said.

PUEBLO — Urban farmer Perdita Butler was ready to harvest her bok choy and fresh, crunchy kohlrabi outside her 1940s stucco home in Pueblo. It was early spring, and the nymph grasshoppers were already munching her crops, forcing her to cover her beds with protective gauze nets. She carefully peeled back the nets to reveal blue potatoes, golden beets, dinosaur kale and other vegetables erupting from the soil.

“What I love about farming is there’s always something new to learn,” Butler said, looking at the snap peas taking off on one side of the garden.

Later this summer, she’ll sell these vegetables and others she’s growing at a new farmers market on Pueblo’s East Side neighborhood—a community without a grocery store since the Safeway in the area closed seven years ago. Butler hopes to build community and improve nutrition in the neighborhood by selling fresh, affordable produce grown five miles away on her microfarm Quarter Acre and a Mule.

Federal, state and local programs that incentivize buying produce at farmers markets, including those in Pueblo, make them affordable to some low-income families and older adults in Colorado. In addition to increasing participants’ access to fresh fruit and vegetables, these programs support small farmers like Butler and boost local economies, especially during the summer and fall harvest cycles.

Three programs specifically help low-income older adults and women and their children in Colorado: Colorado Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, Boulder County WIC Farmers Market Program, and the Colorado Nutrition Incentive Program.

“It’s a win-win. You’re feeding people. You’re supporting farmers,” said Daysi Sweaney, director of healthy food incentives at Nourish, a nonprofit that helps implement and run some of these programs.

Consumers and growers have participated in farmers market programs in Colorado over the past five years, but barriers such as funding cuts and limited time, transportation and money remain challenges.

Farmers market programs

According to the nonprofit Feeding America, Pueblo is among 10 counties with the highest rates of food insecurity in the state. Still, efforts to help families afford local produce are growing in the area. At the other Pueblo Farmers Market location, in downtown Mineral Palace Park, redemption of incentives for fruit and vegetables by low-income families increased significantly from $9,000 in 2020 when it began accepting them to $25,000 last year.

Growth of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Double Up Food Bucks—a grant-funded program available in some states like Colorado that gives SNAP participants double the amount to spend on fruit and vegetables—and the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program has contributed to the increased use, said Marci Cochran, market director for the Pueblo Farmers Market.

“The WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program is explosive in Pueblo,” Cochran said of the program.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment program gives $30 annually in coupons for each participating family member to spend at 22 participating farmers markets (down from 24 last year) statewide before Oct. 31. For example, a pregnant or new mom and her two children over six months of age would have $90 to spend during the season, an increase of roughly 8% from their annual WIC budget of approximately $1,092 for fruit and vegetables.

Angelika Sunie, 25, of Pueblo, who has two children ages 1 and 4, has used the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program for the past two seasons.

“It really helped stretch my benefits,” said Sunie, who also uses SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks.

Sunie bought green beans, Pueblo chiles and Palisade peaches at the farmers market. She made a peach crisp and a simple syrup out of peaches for tea.

She said it helped her bring healthier foods into her home during the summer. Sunie added that she would have spent twice the amount allocated if it had been available.

When she was pregnant with her son in 2022, Sunie said eating more nutritious foods from the farmers market helped her pregnancy. However, she does not qualify for the program now that she has started a new job at UCHealth.

Sweaney said WIC families’ spending at farmers markets is highest along the Front Range corridor stretching from Pueblo to Greeley, but the redemption rate statewide is relatively low.

According to CDPHE data, the use of the coupons has risen from 17% in 2021 to 23% in 2023. (The program was first piloted in 2020.) Emily Bash, a nutrition and physical activity specialist at CDPHE, said she hopes to increase the rate this year by mailing coupons earlier, using text reminders and offering handouts in multiple languages.

Bash and her colleagues also received a $350,000 USDA grant to move from paper coupons to a digital system. It’s easy to lose paper coupons or forget to bring them to a farmers market, Bash said, and buyers can’t get change if their purchase is less than the coupon amount. She said these digital systems are already successful in Nebraska, New Mexico and Washington.

Nourish’s budget to help run programs like these was drastically cut this year by federal WIC funding. Sweaney said there is always fear that money for extra initiatives like these will dry up.

Sweaney and Bash noted that transportation is also a barrier for program participants. According to 2023 CDPHE data, families who live farther away from a farmers market were less likely to use coupons than those who lived in the same zip code as a farmers market.

Cochran said that proximity is why the Pueblo Eastside Farmers Market could be a game changer for residents. “We have a Dollar General and a Dollar Tree and a convenience store, but there is no real food access.”

Local solutions

Meanwhile, county governments like Boulder have created their own solutions. Making local produce affordable and accessible is the focus of a 7-year-old program that provides a punch card worth $80 for Boulder County WIC families and $160 for City of Boulder WIC families per month to spend at farmers markets, helping to supplement the federal money they receive.

Zhuldyz Tokbulatova, 32, a stay-at-home mom, bikes with her 3-year-old son in a bike trailer to the Boulder Farmers Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays to participate in the program. On one Saturday in June, she bought fava beans, tomatoes and cucumbers. Cherries were in season, along with her son’s favorite fruit, aprium, a mix between an apricot and plum.

“He’s a picky eater. He doesn’t eat everything. But he likes to come with me to the farmers market, and he likes to shop there,” Tokbulatova said. “He talks to the vendors and helps pick out vegetables.” His first solid food as an infant was squash from the market.

Tokbulatova, who has participated in the program for four years, said she would not be able to afford to shop at the farmers market without the program. The family’s income is low, and they are careful about their spending.

“It’s very important for me to be able to provide local, fresh produce,” she said. Tokbulatova did not grow up eating many vegetables in her native Kazakhstan, but the program allows her to make more salads or add extra vegetables to staples like beef stew. “It fulfills me as a mother.”

More than 1,000 Boulder County families bought $296,000 worth of farmers market produce from April to November last year—more than double the $116,000 spent by WIC families statewide. It is entirely locally funded by the county’s sustainability tax, the City of Boulder’s Health Equity Fund and the City of Longmont’s Human Services Fund. To overcome transportation challenges, volunteers deliver farmers market produce to families’ homes.

In Garfield County, the local WIC agency used extra funds at the end of the 2023 season to purchase produce from Early Morning Orchard in Palisade, then gave it away for free to 130 families who came in for height and weight measurements as part of WIC wellness checks in Rifle and Glenwood Springs. The hope is for this to become an annual tradition in Garfield County, said Christine Dolan, nutrition programs manager for Garfield County Public Health.

Community-supported agriculture

The Colorado Nutrition Incentive Program connects some of these families directly to produce from local growers — no farmers market required. Community-supported agriculture, or CSA, shares — which run through the summer months — provide weekly boxes of freshly harvested fruit and vegetables to Colorado WIC families and older adults.

For the past three years, Highwater Farm in Silt has provided CSA shares to WIC families in Garfield County. Families visit the 3-acre farm weekly to select harvested produce, with an option to walk into the fields and pick things like cherry tomatoes, snap peas, herbs and flowers. Alternatively, Highwater Farm delivers shares to pickup spots in Glenwood Springs and Carbondale, where families receive a curated share of produce.

Highwater Farm Manager Rebecca Gourlay said CSAs are a relatively new concept for some families along Colorado’s Western Slope. She includes familiar vegetables like lettuce, onions, garlic, beans and peppers in the boxes.

But it’s also an opportunity to introduce families to new vegetables like arugula or mustard greens. These are explained in a weekly newsletter in English and Spanish that includes new recipes. The farm has a part-time bilingual outreach coordinator who talks to families during pickups.

“She helps us connect with our Latino community in a more meaningful way,” Gourlay said.

Without subsidies, it’s difficult for low-income families to afford CSAs, Gourley said, because a person has to pay upfront in the winter for produce provided throughout the summer and fall seasons.

Despite successful partnerships like those at Highwater, overall funding for the CSA program in Colorado dipped to $320,000 in 2024, down from $1.2 million in 2023. Since the program’s inception in 2019, it has relied on state, federal and philanthropic funding. This year, its grant did not allow Nourish to pay farmers 100% upfront for the summer’s produce, and some small farmers, already operating on thin margins, could no longer afford to participate, Sweaney said. Fewer than 30 farmers signed up this year, compared with 115 last year.

Becca Jablonski, co-director of the Food Systems Institute at Colorado State University, worries about farmers relying on subsidies and venues that may not exist in the future. While more data points are needed to fully understand how nutrition incentive programs benefit farmers’ overall bottom lines compared to alternatives, Jablonski said the programs could make rural farmers markets more attractive to farmers if they significantly increase the overall amount of money spent. (Cochran, with the Pueblo Farmers Market, said that nutrition incentive programs kept the market afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.)

Jablonski’s research has shown that incentive programs benefit local economies in states like California and Colorado.

“For every $1 invested in a healthy food incentive program, we can expect to see up to $3 in economic activity generated,” she and her co-authors wrote. In Colorado, conservative estimates for scaling these programs statewide would create 92 jobs, $4.3 million in labor income, and an economic contribution of $19.8 million, based on data from 2018 and 2019.

At the state level, there is some stability for these programs next year. In June, the Colorado legislature created the Healthy Food Incentives Program—a bill allocating $500,0000 for fiscal year 2024-25 to support Nourish’s work, including CSA produce boxes for low-income families.

But Sweaney said the appropriation is insufficient to meet the box demand. Nourish plans to work with the state legislature’s Joint Budget Committee to secure more state funds and advocate for more federal funding for local food systems and food access in the upcoming U.S. Farm Bill.

Building community through food

On a Saturday morning in May, farmer Brett Mills of Sweet Valley Farm drove 45 minutes to sell plant starters for heirloom tomatoes as part of an early-season pop-up event at the Pueblo Farmers Market. Whatever he didn’t sell, he planned to donate to community gardens.

“We want to be helpful to people growing their own food in the community,” Mills said.

Community is something that advocates like Butler and Cochran say nutrition incentive programs can help build as part of broader efforts to create local food systems for families and growers. Eastside Farmers Market is the next step of a community redevelopment project in Pueblo that will eventually include a grocery store at the site of the former, now-abandoned Spann Elementary School.

Bringing fresh, local produce to Pueblo’s East Side at a farmers market is a first, said Monique Marez, a food systems practitioner who grew up in Pueblo and ran the Pueblo Food Project for three years. However, other treasures exist at the farmers market besides fruit and vegetables.

“The goal is to open up a conversation about how the community is doing,” Marez said.

The market is also an opportunity for families and children to connect with farmers and learn how food grows. “You never know when you might meet the next generation of farmers,” Cochran said.

Back at her urban farm, with railroad tracks several feet away and the Wet Mountains in view, Butler talked with reverence about a sweet pepper variety that she couldn’t wait to taste. She was eager to sell basil, beans, cilantro, tomatoes and 20 other types of fruit and vegetables at Eastside Farmers Market.

Butler said she fully supports nutrition incentive programs, but the idea is more significant than improving access to local produce. It encompasses nutrition, empowerment and agency, community and relationship building.

“The farmers market is the hub—the start, the seed,” Butler said.

Freelance reporter Kate Ruder wrote this story for The Colorado Trust, a philanthropic foundation that works on health equity issues statewide and also funds a reporting position at The Colorado Sun. It appeared at coloradotrust.org on July, 29, 2024, and can be read in Spanish at collective.coloradotrust.org/es. 

BERTHOUD — Parents everywhere hear the call of the wild, especially in the summer months, and one of the most common refrains is, “Can we go to the park?”

For many parents it might be a relief, a chance to shoo them out of the house like a miller moth. Yes! Go to the park! But for Lauren Bowling, that refrain is anything but a chance to unwind. It means work. It means nearly two hours in the car. It means a whole afternoon. 

Lauren and her husband, Richard, have twin boys they call walking miracles. Miles and Mack had twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome and were week-to-week starting about 12 weeks into her pregnancy, Lauren said, until they were delivered by emergency cesarean section at 28 weeks. The babies scrapped and survived, and the boys are now age 7. Mack is as able-bodied as they come and Miles has no cognitive problems, which gives the Bowlings oodles of gratitude. It really could have been much worse.

But Miles has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair to get around. This means not every park will work, including all the available playgrounds in Berthoud, where he lives with his parents, Mack and an older brother, Braxton.

This will change by next spring and possibly a lot sooner, thanks to the Berthoud Adaptive Park Project. The park will be Berthoud’s first inclusive playground of any kind, but this one will be one of the most inclusive in northern Colorado, with a surface he can roll on and swings, monkey bars and a merry-go-round, all adapted so Miles can have fun, too. Berthoud broke ground on the park on May 29. 

“The monkey bars are built so kids in wheelchairs can pull themselves through,” Lauren said. “Miles will be able to play on monkey bars with other boys.”

Berthoud launched the park thanks to the Bowlings, who raised money for it with a ridiculously successful lemonade stand (this year’s annual event raised more than $13,000, for a total of $53,000 over four years) and the help of Can’d Aid, a Longmont nonprofit launched in 2013 by craft-brew-in-a-can pioneer Dale Katechis. It also took some haranguing, the kind parents of disabled children learn to do as their offspring grow up enough to explore the outside world and realize some things aren’t the same for them.

Haranguing, even a few years ago, was how inclusive parks were built. Now parks departments realize that an adaptive park doesn’t mean building a ramp so kids can sit in their wheelchair while other kids run by them. Denver, in fact, tries to be inclusive with every new park. 

“Now people are realizing that accessible is not inclusive,” said Juliet Dawkins, who started LuBird’s Light Foundation with Jason, her husband, for their daughter, Lucia, after her nickname. “Even if you have a smooth surface, a wheel-able surface, if you don’t have a piece of equipment for them to play on, what’s the point?”

Most of Colorado’s larger cities have at least one inclusive park, and the movement is trickling down to towns such as Berthoud, with a population of 12,000. 

Yet parents still need to show up, speak up and make sure they are heard, Bowling said, despite emphasizing in her speech at the groundbreaking that she couldn’t have done it without the help of many others. She had to help push community fundraising for the park toward its $1.6 million goal, after all. 

“There were times I got intimidated by our grand goal, and anytime that happened, someone in the community reached out and would reinvigorate me,” Bowling said. “But I don’t think it would have happened without me pushing. It feels gross to say that, because so many helped lift me, but no, I don’t.” 

Where you belong (really)

This year’s theme of the National Recreation and Park Association is “Where You Belong.” That’s intentional, said Kara Kish, director of parks and recreation for the city of Loveland.

“A lot don’t feel they do belong,” Kish said. “But in the last five years, universal access has been the new standard. The primary drive is the commitment to be in service to everyone.” 

Cities across the country, including Loveland, Denver and many others, have revamped their recreation departments to not only offer programs specifically for those in disabled communities but adjust any class or sport to make it accessible if someone requests it. 

Parks are a harder commitment, but they are working on it. Loveland’s spent the past decade, Kish said, to make all its parks compliant with the American for Disabilities Act.

ADA standards, however, aren’t always fun, and that’s why parks departments are looking beyond them. Loveland broke ground April 22 on the 160-acre Willow Bend Natural Area and Universal Access Playground, which will feature the city’s first universally accessible playground — 12 acres. Loveland hopes it will be ready by spring. 

“Universal access goes beyond physical limitations,” said Bryan Harding, Loveland’s parks and recreation planning manager. “It runs the whole gamut. We won’t have everything for everybody but we will have something for everyone.” 

The park will feature play equipment designed to be used with other people, with a concrete slide, for instance, that’s extra wide and doesn’t cause static that can knock out pacemakers and bother those with hearing difficulties, as well as bathrooms with oversized stalls and adult changing tables. There will be tools for sensory play as well, which can be soothing for those with autism and other similar issues. There’s even charging stations for mobility devices such as electric wheelchairs. 

Concrete slides are a new concept, but it’s likely able-bodied kids will like them better as well, Harding said, since they don’t get nearly as hot as metal or plastic slides. Inclusive swings and merry-go-rounds are still loved and used regularly by everyone as well. 

“Inherently when you improve upon something,” Harding said, “it serves everyone better.” 

“We want people to be together”

Denver Parks and Recreation now considers whether a park is universally accessible and inclusive instead of buying a piece of equipment and calling it good. 

“It’s a conversation we are going to have every time a park is in the planning stage,” said Owen Wells, the district park planning supervisor for Denver Parks and Recreation. “We’ve had a lot of conversations with families and advocacy groups. They’ve helped us understand what makes parks inclusive. We’ve been learning over time.” 

Sometimes parks departments were the opposite of inclusive even when they meant well. Buying a single piece of adaptive equipment can be anything but inclusive.

“The idea is we want people to be together,” Wells said. “It doesn’t meet that goal if a kid is playing on a piece of equipment in a section of the park by himself.”

Parks and recreation departments and the equipment providers that serve them nationwide are doing their best to learn, Wells said. Denver’s focused on inclusive playgrounds for a bit now — Wells said it’s been a focus since he started working for Denver four years ago, and it was before he got there — and it’s now so commonplace that even towns such as Berthoud do their best. 

“I think we are in a moment where the industry is evolving a little bit,” Wells said. 

There are also limitations, Wells said. Some of Denver’s 175 parks were built during World War I and aren’t easy to retrofit, as accessible equipment can be much larger. Cost can also be an issue, although that may depend on the cities, as some said the equipment they found was a lot more expensive. Wells agreed that adaptive equipment costs more but also said fitting the equipment in older parks was a bigger constraint. 

“Is it backbreaking? No,” Wells said of the cost.

The fight continues

Yet with all the thinking on a citywide level about inclusive parks, there are still people fighting for more of them. Sarah Spiller, a physical therapist for Academy School District No. 20 in Colorado Springs, has a hard time recommending a park for her families in Colorado Springs. 

“Our closest one that’s accessible in our area is 30 minutes away,” Spiller said. 

There are three inclusive parks in Colorado Springs, she said, including Panorama Park, which she calls “wonderful.” But from the school district where she works, it’s 35 minutes away. 

Colorado Springs wants to work with her, she said, but said it is hamstrung by tens of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance on its parks. Many parks were built in the early 1990s, she said. But the city told her that if she could raise money for it, the city would match her contribution. 

She’s also spoken with an HOA that might be willing to donate money for a neighborhood park if they could use the grounds for free for events like Easter egg hunts. Maybe parks companies would donate a piece of adaptive equipment. 

“I need to create an organization and meet again with parks and rec,” Spiller said. “We will see.”

Spiller’s push is the kind of initiative that LuBird oundation wants to see, even if Dawkins does agree that parks and recreation departments are taking a lot more initiative on inclusive parks. 

“Whenever there’s a new park, generally cities will present plans to the public, and there are questions like, ‘Do you want a regular swing or a support swing?’,” Dawkins said. “Parents should advocate for that.”

There are certain pieces that LuBird pushes for nearly every time a new park gets built, such as surface merry-go-rounds and supportive swings, things that Dawkins calls “a slam dunk.” 

“It’ll be awhile before every park is inclusive every time,” Dawkins said. “But at the minimum, you can have those pieces and add more from there.” 

The park in Berthoud won’t be ready for kids until late fall, and it’s possible the rubber surface won’t be ready until the spring. They are planning a grand opening for Memorial Day. 

Bowling sees the park less as a way for her to avoid driving long distances as a real chance for Miles to be a typical boy whenever he wants. He can ask his mother if he can go to the park, and Bowling, finally, will be able to shoo him out the door. 

“He’ll be able to roll out the garage door and go down the block and play safely with his friends,” Bowling said. “That’s something I wish for every child.”

Larimer County’s community mental health center has abruptly laid off 75 employees, causing a gap in care for some of the most vulnerable patients and increasing concerns about how far the fallout will spread after a seismic shift in Medicaid funding. 

Connor Grogan had 35 clients at SummitStone Health Partners in Fort Collins when he was told at a mandatory meeting last week that he was among those losing their jobs because of a budget crisis. He had to turn in his phone and laptop on the spot, with no opportunity to say goodbye to his patients. 

“It was unethical the way that it was handled,” said Grogan, who had counseled children, families and adults at the center for more than two years. “At the very least, I feel like it is not trauma-informed, which is something that SummitStone had been preaching about for quite some time.”

The community mental health center, one of 18 statewide, is the latest to lay off employees in the wake of hundreds of thousands of Coloradans losing Medicaid coverage after the end of the pandemic public health emergency and a massive change in the way the state Medicaid division reimburses behavioral health providers. 

Mind Springs, the safety-net mental health center for several counties in northwestern Colorado, laid off 49 people, 13% of its administrative staff, this summer. Centennial Mental Health, which serves 10 counties in the northeastern corner of the state, laid off three of its five top executives in June. And Jefferson Center for Mental Health, which serves Jefferson, Clear Creek and Gilpin counties, is dealing with a $5 million shortfall on a $89 million budget, a deficit so large that plans for a merger with Denver’s mental health center, Wellpower, were called off in June. 

SummitStone had to cut $14 million to break even on its $80 million budget. About $9 million of those cuts came from staff reductions. 

“I’m going to be OK,” said Grogan, who is likely to find a job because he speaks Spanish and is a male therapist. “The piece that hurts the most is that I had zero closure with my clients. I lost yearslong relationships in an instant. I couldn’t even say goodbye. 

“I’m devastated for the most vulnerable humans in our community that were getting better. I worry about suicides rising in our community. I worry about overdoses rising in our community.”

Most of the employees who lost their jobs did not work directly with clients and instead were in other departments, including technology, SummitStone CEO Michael Allen said. The 75 jobs were about 10% of the workforce at SummitStone, which has locations in Fort Collins, Loveland and Estes Park. Executives took a 5% cut in pay. 

The first budget problem for the center was that thousands of Coloradans were dropped from Medicaid insurance at the end of the three-year federal public health emergency put in place at the start of the COVID pandemic. In the past year, the percentage of SummitStone clients without insurance rose to 25%, up from 17%.

On top of that, landmark legislation that brought sweeping changes to Colorado’s mental health system — including how mental health providers get paid — went into effect July 1. 

First effects of monumental change 

The Behavioral Health Act, passed in 2022, was intended to break up the monopoly of Colorado’s mental health centers, opening them up to competition with private behavioral health agencies. 

For years, the centers operated under no-bid contracts with the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which includes the Medicaid government insurance program for people with low incomes. The centers received $437 million in tax dollars per year and were required to treat people in their regions. 

Under the new structure, mental health centers don’t get a lump sum. They must bill the state Medicaid program for every service they provide, per person — a reimbursement for an individual therapy appointment, another for a group therapy session, another for a housing consultation. 

Mental health centers warned lawmakers that communities, especially in rural areas, could end up with fewer services under the new payment structure. They worry providers will offer only services that make money, leaving out help with housing and employment. 

This summer, it seems the effects of the monumental change in policy are beginning to take shape. Mental health experts are wondering if the current structure is beginning to break apart, and they hope the new one that forms in its place will end up more robust and capable of serving more people.

Still, the process is painful. 

The three community mental health centers that have had layoffs “likely won’t be the only ones,” said Kara Johnson-Hufford, CEO of the Colorado Behavioral Healthcare Council, the association for mental health centers. 

“Folks have scraped their reserves,” she said. “They are not filling open positions.” 

Not all community mental health centers are struggling, but some have been hit harder by the drop-off in Medicaid rolls, Johnson-Hufford said. In some communities, Medicaid enrollment has shrunk by 35%-60%, she said. 

Colorado had 1.8 million people enrolled in Medicaid during the pandemic, a historic 30% of the state’s population and up from a pre-pandemic 21%. Medicaid enrollment is now down to about 22% after the federal rules were lifted last year. 

Mental health centers tried to budget for the Medicaid cliff, but they were basing their plans on state projections that were not accurate for every region. That drop-off hit at the same time as the payment structure overhaul. And the new bill-per-service structure does not account for the uninsured, Johnson-Hufford said. 

“Significant reform is hard,” she said. “Bring more providers into the safety net, absolutely.” But, she added, Colorado policymakers need to make sure the system’s funding and structure can support mental health providers who want to serve their communities. 

The changes have amounted to the “perfect storm,” Johnson-Hufford said.

“Not all of this is impacting all of our providers in the same way,” she said. “And it’s not just any one thing.”

Mind Springs, which serves Mesa and seven other counties, spent $1.9 million last fiscal year on treatment for people without insurance, CEO John Sheehan said. Services are already taking a hit — the mental health center had to drop its men’s program when it laid off 49 people this summer. 

The new per-service payment structure, at a time when the number of uninsured is rising, “doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he said. 

“And so far it hasn’t done anything but destabilize the system,” Sheehan said. “The provider network is fragile and has been made more fragile. When you lose them, you can’t get them back.”

It’s hardly surprising that safety-net mental health centers are feeling the loss of Medicaid coverage for 600,000 Coloradans in the span of about a year, said Vincent Atchity, president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado.

“It’s an earthquake that takes a segment out of a highway,” he said. “It’s a crisis for sure.” 

Atchity, who advocated for payment reform and more transparency in public spending on community mental health centers, said it’s likely there is “some seismic shifting that occurs when a system is flipping itself as much as this.” 

But it’s unclear this early on in the transformation why some mental health centers are “complaining vociferously” about the new payment system while “others are shrugging their shoulders.”

“I’d love to get to the bottom of what is actually happening,” he said.

Employees got no severance, clients got no goodbye

SummitStone’s CEO summed up the payment reform bluntly: “The pie didn’t get any bigger but the number of folks accessing the slices of pie did get bigger.” 

Allen expects SummitStone will lose 5%-10% of its clients because “our reputation in the community has taken a hit” when so many people lost their jobs and many clients lost their therapists without notice.

“These are hard things,” Allen said. “It’s a hard conversation to tell the community that we are in an opioid crisis and we are in a loneliness crisis and the largest behavioral health provider in the area is laying off 10% of its staff. That doesn’t make sense.” 

Laid-off employees were invited to mandatory meetings in small groups and were told they could not return to their desks or contact their clients, that they would get no severance pay and that their health insurance would last until the end of the month, according to several former workers who spoke to The Colorado Sun. 

It’s a hard conversation to tell the community that we are in an opioid crisis and we are in a loneliness crisis and the largest behavioral health provider in the area is laying off 10% of its staff.

— Michael Allen, CEO of SummitStone

The CEO said the mental health center operated with a deficit as long as it could and that he tried to avoid layoffs by scrapping plans to renovate buildings, cutting travel and catering budgets and staff incentives. But in June, when the center got its rates and contracts for the upcoming fiscal year that started July 1, it was obvious that there was no way to break even without “dramatic” cuts in staff, Allen said.

“This was a last resort,” he said. “Nobody wanted to do this.” 

The center partners with several other Larimer County agencies to provide mental health services and Allen said he is hopeful that those agencies can afford to pay the full salaries of those workers. The partners included Sunrise Community Health, a medical health center that integrates mental health care, and Outreach Fort Collins, a nonprofit that has a mobile mental health response team for people living outside. 

“It all hurts. It’s all terrible. My heart aches,” Allen said. But, he added, SummitStone had to make the cuts in order to continue “to be here for our community.” 

SummitStone has a contract with Larimer County to provide behavioral health care at the Acute Care Center at Longview Campus, which was not affected by the layoffs, county staff said.

As for client care, Allen said clients typically have a care team — including a case manager and a peer specialist with personal experience dealing with behavioral health issues — that will help them through the transition. 

Former employees, however, accused Allen of not being honest with them about the budget crisis and said the layoffs came as a huge shock. Some said they have complained to state agencies, including the Department of Regulatory Agencies, about the way clients were “abandoned” because of the layoffs. 

“We were all shocked by what was happening,” said Katie Rapson-Stecula, a supervisor who also provided therapy for a handful of clients. “Nobody discussed continuity of care for clients. There was no plan that we were able to be a part of as their providers. There were no warm handoffs. There wasn’t even a conversation to say goodbye.”

Rapson-Stecula said she couldn’t stop thinking about one of her clients who has a long history of suicide attempts. “It’s not how we are supposed to treat our clients in any way,” she said. “It’s unethical.”

After 70 kids and teenagers complained in the past year that they were mistreated while locked in detention centers, Colorado’s child protection ombudsman is calling for audio surveillance in the youth corrections system. 

Cameras inside the state’s youth detention centers capture video, but not audio, which means any investigation into the use of restraints or physical force against youth is incomplete, the ombudsman said in a fiery brief issued Tuesday. 

In response, the director of the Division of Youth Services said he’s already working on it. Anders Jacobson told The Colorado Sun that he is making plans to buy tiny cameras that attach to belt loops and discreetly collect video and audio of encounters between employees and young people who are in detention. 

The body-worn cameras, the cost of which is estimated at $610,000 per year for five years, will also detect key words — such as “Will you help me escape?” — that would automatically alert supervisors, Jacobson said. 

While the ombudsman’s brief felt “antagonistic” to Jacobson, he said his agency is in full agreement and has a head start — he’s already had a surveillance vendor in his office demonstrating the belt-loop devices.

“We want audio,” he said. “It aids in the investigation of any allegation. It doesn’t only protect youth, it protects staff as well. It’s not hard to go back and listen to the recording.” 

In her brief, Ombudsman Stephanie Villafuerte called on the Division of Youth Services to overhaul its surveillance system, adding audio capabilities at its 15 youth facilities statewide. The office accused the youth corrections division, part of the Colorado Department of Human Services, of leaving out audio surveillance even as it has built new youth centers and remodeled old ones. 

In reviewing video surveillance, the ombudsman’s office has watched multiple “violent physical interactions between staff and youth,” the brief said. 

“Youth have been pushed into walls, shoved and thrown to the floor, sometimes, by multiple adults,” the office wrote, noting that the incidents have not decreased despite a decade of efforts by lawmakers and advocates. Of the 70 complaints to the ombudsman in the past year, 47 involved excessive force or staff misconduct — a 27% increase from the previous year.

A 13-year-old boy’s face was slammed into a metal door frame as staff attempted to force him to the floor last year, causing a gash that required stitches. Division of Youth Services staff claimed the physical force was necessary because the teen had made verbal threats moments before. 

In another example, a youth who was recovering from a concussion was restrained in 2022 even though medical staff had advised against any physical contact. The boy claimed staff had antagonized him with racist language before he made threats of harm. 

Several youths have told the ombudsman that they were subjected to racial slurs or threats meant to disparage or intimidate them, and have alleged that staff are “aware of blind spots within camera systems” that they avoid. Without audio, the ombudsman cannot fully investigate the complaints. 

“At best, this system provides half the information needed to assess these cases,” the ombudsman’s brief states. “The remainder of the information comes from those who may have the most to lose by being forthright.” 

Tiny cameras would fit trauma-informed approach

Jacobson said he does not want traditional body-worn cameras like the ones that law enforcement officers attach to their chests. Those don’t fit with the Division of Youth Service’s trauma-informed approach to help young people recover from past abuse, and instead could pit kids against staff. 

“It creates the potential of an us-against-them type of environment,” he said. “We are not adult jail. We are not law enforcement.”

Ten of the division’s 15 youth centers, with home-like environments instead of cells, and staff who do not wear uniforms, are certified as trauma-informed by a national agency called the Sanctuary Institute. 

Jacobson said he will likely ask for state funding or look for federal grants that could cover the cost of the tiny cameras. “We don’t have that kind of extra money laying around in the budget,” he said. 

Under state law, the Division of Youth Services is allowed to use physical force in emergencies and after the failure of less-restrictive alternatives. It’s up to staff to determine when an emergency exists and whether the young person poses “a serious, probable or imminent threat of bodily harm to themselves or others.” 

Young people inside youth centers have “unfettered access” to the child protection ombudsman, as well as Disability Law Colorado, with phones inside the facilities that automatically connect to either, Jacobson said.

Use of restraints has increased, data shows 

In a six-month period in 2023, 465 young people were restrained 4,614 times, according to the most recent report of the state’s Youth Restraint and Seclusion Working Group. That was up 34% from the prior six months. The use of mechanical restraints — handcuffs, shackles and belts — increased by 29%.

Black youth were involved in 38% of the restraint incidents, but make up 23% of the population in Colorado’s youth detention centers, which the ombudsman’s office called “particularly troubling.”  

The ombudsman’s office also is requesting that the Division of Youth Services share more data regarding physical restraints, including the number of times a child or teen sustains serious injury, and the youth’s race and ethnicity. 

The state legislature passed a law in 2017 intended to curb the use of restraints and seclusion for youth, a move that came after a report from several advocacy agencies, including ACLU Colorado, called “Bound and Broken.” 

Other states, including Ohio, Louisiana and Wisconsin, have added audio surveillance to youth corrections facilities in recent years and claimed that the technology led to decreased violence, according to the ombudsman’s brief. 

In Ohio, staff at the Indian River Juvenile Correctional Facility began wearing cameras in 2022 after 12 youths barricaded themselves in a school building. Within a year, the center reported a 31% decrease in violence against staff. 

The ombudsman also pointed toward Colorado’s 2020 law that required local law enforcement agencies and the Colorado State Patrol to use body-worn cameras in situations that might include a use of force. With $5 million in state funding, law officers at 200 agencies statewide now have body-worn cameras, the ombudsman said, calling it a “model” for the state’s 15 youth corrections centers.

Kalyn Rose Heffernan has played shows all over the world and never been asked about her accessibility needs. 

“It’s wild to me,” said the emcee frontwoman of hip-hop group Wheelchair Sports Camp. “Wheelchair is in my band name. All of my pictures are me in a wheelchair. And you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been placed at a festival upstairs.”

Wheelchair Sports Camp has been a sonic staple in Denver for over a decade, and they’ve played the annual Underground Music Showcase a handful of years during that time. In 2022, Youth on Record, a nonprofit music organization that Heffernan works for, took over partial ownership of the festival. The ownership agreement came with a commitment to audit and overhaul the festival’s accessibility strategy. Heffernan was the obvious first call.

Growing Denver’s largest music festival

The Underground Music Showcase, a three-day, multivenue festival with nearly 200 acts, bubbled up in 2001 at the Bluebird Theater on Colfax. For a few years the showcase — which started with four bands for $5 — bopped back and forth between the Bluebird and the Gothic Theater in Englewood, until 2006, when it settled into its current location, a six-block strip of South Broadway. 

Over its 23-year run, the festival has changed hands from Denver Post reporter John Moore (now the arts and entertainment reporter at the Denver Gazette), to the Post’s then-music critic Ricardo Baca (now of the marketing agency Grasslands), to The Denver Post itself through the paper’s community foundation, and finally, in 2018, to its current co-owner, the marketing agency Two Parts.

Two years ago, Youth on Record, a nonprofit music organization, got in on the action. 

Youth on Record had received a surprise, unrestricted $1 million donation from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in 2021, which Jami Duffy, executive director of Youth on Record, wanted to put toward building a “musician middle class.” That meant investing in things like professional development, higher wages and more opportunities for young musicians “to get in front of people,” Duffy explained. “So I looked at that and said, why don’t we see if that’s possible under UMS’ umbrella?”

Putting accessibility in writing

In March 2022, Duffy met with Casey Berry of Two Parts at the late-night hang Sputnik and inked their new co-ownership deal. Part of the ownership agreement included an accessibility audit, conducted by Youth on Record. 

They didn’t get straight to it. During Youth on Record’s first year of co-ownership, they had “some other things to focus on,” Duffy said. They set up sober bars, created a “care lounge” for artists to recharge away from the noise, and started Impact Days, a two-day industry-focused conference for musicians to learn and network.

Then it was time to hire Heffernan.

“Kalyn’s always been such a leader for accessibility rights. She’s a huge advocate in our community. She works with kids. And, bonus points, she’s also a well-respected career musician,” Duffy said. “So there was no better option locally.”

They also brought in Jessica Wallach, an accessibility consultant and artist who sometimes uses a scooter to get around. Together, Wallach and Heffernan conducted a comprehensive audit of every venue at UMS. 

“Just by us rolling through these places, and knowing little tricks, I think we were able to explain the accessibility of places in a way that hopefully other people are going to benefit from,” Heffernan said. 

“You know, like, ‘the door is heavy, but once you get in, it’s nice and open. The bathrooms are accessible, but the sink is high up.’ Weird shit like that.”

Together they compiled the festival’s first accessibility guide, which details everything from where to find water (for concertgoers and service dogs alike) to what the floor is like (the stage at Goodwill has freshly paved concrete, the stage at Punch Bowl has potholes). This year’s guide is 31 pages and can be downloaded ahead of time in regular or large print, and can be read at the festival in braille. 

“Ability is temporary”

The goal is to make bigger changes in the coming years, like building raised platforms at the main stages, creating low-sensory spaces where people can take breaks, hiring American Sign Language interpreters, and looking into alternative modes of experiencing music, like vibrating haptic suits that allow wearers to feel the music. 

But all of that costs money. Duffy is looking for an additional $50,000 next year to specifically address accessibility needs. 

“Something Kalyn taught me that has stayed with me is that ability is temporary,” Duffy said. “At some point in most of our lives, we will experience a disability, whether that’s temporary, long-term or forever. It could be because of an illness, because of an accident. You know, there’s all kinds of things that can happen. So ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities means that everyone is being taken care of.”

For now, the accessibility committee — headed by Wallach and Heffernan — is focused on providing an abundance of information so people with access needs know what they’re getting into. Along with the accessibility guide, they will have on-site coordinators and a tent with ear plugs, water and power strips to charge wheelchairs. 

For Heffernan, working with UMS “really filled a void. And like, (quieted) the rage,” she said. “It’s frustrating at times. If I don’t say something, nobody will, and if I say something then I’m working within all these trade-offs,” she said, referencing the inaccessible shows she’s gone ahead and played, but that upset the disability community in the process. “What a dream world it would be to just make my art and play music.”

History Colorado will begin its second wave of research into Native American boarding schools next month — this time with help from Indigenous people whose family members survived the horrifying experience.

The three-year project, funded with $1 million from the state legislature, will focus on consultation with Native American communities to foster healing and reconciliation.

“During the first round, they only had a year to do the research and write the report, which was a very narrow timeline,” said state Rep. Barbara McLachlan, co-sponsor of the laws that allocated funding to the research.

“A lot of the research, because of that short timeline, came from papers and reports by a white person involved in all of this,” she said. “With this new law, they’re hoping to talk with tribal members and second generation Native Americans to see how this has affected the next generation that is coming up.”

History Colorado plans to meet with leaders of Native American tribes and Indigenous community members, Alaska Natives and others living on reservations outside of Colorado to help create a plan to care for the people affected by federal boarding schools that existed statewide.

Gina Lopez, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe who lives in Towaoc, said she’s skeptical of the accuracy of the report, which relies on archived government reports that are inconsistent and incomplete and written by school superintendents, who wove their own narratives about the success of the schools and the students’ everyday experiences, according to the paper’s authors.

“If those things aren’t reliable, how will we ever know the truth and achieve any justice in terms of these boarding schools?” Lopez asked. 

During the next iteration of research, History Colorado has said it plans to meet privately with representatives from 33 tribal nations twice per year, Alaska Native organizations and students who attended federal boarding schools in Colorado to help provide insights into future recommendations for reconciliation, according to the historical agency’s public recommendations made to the state legislature.

History Colorado raised awareness about the report through social media posts when the paper was published in October 2023, included links to stories about the report in its newsletter for subscribers, created other informational links online and has a webpage on its site dedicated to informing people about boarding schools, Luke Perkins, manager of communications and public relations at History Colorado, wrote in an email to The Colorado Sun. 

History Colorado also held a listening session Aug. 16, 2023, with leaders of Native American and Alaska Native community organizations, Perkins told The Sun. 

History Colorado plans to travel to reservations outside of Colorado to examine their archives, personal stories and other repositories to help create a fuller story of the impact of the boarding schools.

At the discussions, which may take place at some of the boarding school sites, community members are expected to address and plan for memorialization at former boarding school sites where children are still buried, finding ways to support impacted communities and education opportunities for Native American Coloradans and others statewide.

A tribal communications specialist at History Colorado, who was hired to help complete study requirements during the first round of research, will continue helping with the investigative efforts by managing communications with tribal representatives and descendant communities.

The report identified nine boarding schools in Colorado that were financially supported by the federal government, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, from 1880 to 1920.

Native Americans and other community members have requested additional research into federal, state and local school policies after 1920, when many off-reservation and on-reservation schools were closing as Indigenous kids were integrated into local public schools.

History Colorado must develop recommendations to the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado Department of Higher Education and the state legislature that aim to address the effects of the boarding school system on Indigenous communities in partnership with the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs and a steering committee that will include organizations led by and served by Native Americans.

History Colorado must provide preliminary recommendations for care and memorialization at the boarding school sites to the Commission on Indian Affairs no later than Nov. 8, 2025, and should provide final recommendations by May 10, 2027.

Abusing Native children in the name of assimilation

For more than 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were taken away from their communities to attend boarding schools.

More than 500 government-funded Native American boarding schools existed in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries, often led by churches.

By 1926, nearly 83% of all Native American children of school age were in boarding schools.

The purpose of the schools was to culturally assimilate Native Americans by forcibly removing children from their homes to far away residential facilities where their identities, beliefs and languages were stripped.

Some students lost their surnames when facility leaders gave them names of famous people, such as presidents, or even school staff members, according to the report.

Families lost their parenting authority and the ability to pass on Native American culture and traditions and the legacy of the schools has caused long-standing intergenerational trauma, cycles of violence and abuse, disappearance of Native American people, mental health issues and substance use disorders in Native communities, lawmakers wrote in the law.

Native children in Colorado’s boarding schools were forced to learn carpentry or blacksmithing to prepare them for jobs as laborers in white families’ homes, according to the report.

Neglect, unsanitary conditions and poor nutrition caused illnesses that frequently swept across the schools and some children were physically and sexually abused, according to the report.

Students were, most often, enrolled in boarding schools after they were kidnapped or recruited, or after their parents were coerced or threatened by Native American agents or school superintendents, according to the History Colorado report.

Once students were physically separated from their parents, they often did not return home for two to five years, the report says.

James Jefferson, a member of the Southern Ute tribe, attended Ute Mountain Boarding School in Towaoc in the late 1930s and the Southern Ute Vocational School near Ignacio in the 1940s.

His parents met in a Towaoc boarding school and recalled the horrors of the experience and tried their best to keep Jefferson and his siblings out of boarding schools. 

But boarding school superintendents threatened Jefferson’s parents and said they would be thrown in jail if their kids did not attend.

“If you spoke your language, you were slapped with a ruler,” said Jefferson, 90, who lives in Durango. 

“They washed my mouth out because I spoke Ute, they made us march everywhere, kids were thrown in basements, the teachers were mean. It was horrible,” he said.

He did not attend the boarding school for long. His family fled to Denver through a relocation program led by the federal government, soon after he attended boarding school, where he says he got a much better education. 

The relocation program encouraged Native American people to move to urban areas where they would merge with white American culture, according to a report by People of the Sacred Land’s Truth, Restoration, and Education Commission of Colorado.

Several of Morning Star Jones’ family members attended boarding schools and she said the original research was well done and presents opportunities for reconciliation. 

“This is a report to most, but to me, there’s so much emotion tied to it,” said Jones, a Northern and Southern Cheyenne woman living in Denver. “My great-grandmother, grandparents and cousin went to boarding schools,” she said.

The first step toward reconciliation should include returning the remains of children buried at former boarding school sites to their families, if that is preferred by relatives, she said.

“I fully understand this may not be fully in line with the views of certain tribes. However, as a mother, I would want my child with family members,” Jones said during an emotional interview.

Therapeutic services should be made available to Native Americans who are still affected by the boarding schools to help them heal from generational trauma, Jones said.

All schools in Colorado should teach the history of boarding schools to students, she said. Educating people about how the federal government killed Native people and erased their culture may make Coloradans more understanding of and sensitive to Indigenous people’s needs, Jones said. 

Funds should be donated to Native American tribes and the organizations that support them, Jones added. And Colorado should pass a bill that makes it a hate crime to cut the hair of an Indigenous person, she said.

Hair cutting was a standard practice at boarding schools. Newly arrived students were forced to have their hair chopped by teachers, who in some cases, held down children during the process, because long hair was viewed as a “hygiene issue,” according to the report. 

“Across North America, I see boys with long hair are being targeted and their hair is being cut off,” Jones said. “The only time that we are to cut our hair is when we are in mourning.”

Poor record keeping by boarding school administrators left yawning gaps in the historical record, challenging efforts to determine how many children ran away under duress, or fell ill and died far from their homes and families. And that makes Lopez wonder if anyone can really know what happened at the schools, she said.

“Justice has always been out of reach for Native people and other communities of color and I think this enforces that reality,” she said.

Lopez attended Sherman Indian High School, a boarding school in Riverside, California, where students learn about the history of the school when they’re enrolled, an effort that provides healing, she said.

“It didn’t feel like there was a lot of outreach to make this report too widely known. I had to go look for it,” Lopez said. “They need to do a marketing campaign to make sure folks have the opportunity to learn about this next report and any other developments.”

History Colorado is accepting comments, questions and suggestions from Native American tribal representatives, community members and organizations and descendants of people who attended boarding schools at h-co.org/HB22-1327.

A brewing disagreement about how to deal with child protection caseworkers who fabricate records has taken an unexpected turn — with one arm of state government charging another $30 per hour to gather information requested under the Colorado Open Records Act. 

The information dispute, which brings up a host of questions including whether that’s the best use of public dollars, is between the Office of the Colorado Child Protection Ombudsman and the Colorado Department of Human Services. 

The two agencies have been working to close a gap in the system that allows caseworkers accused of falsifying records against families or lying about checking on children to transfer to another county, with no requirement to notify the new county or even the families involved. 

Ombudsman Stephanie Villafuerte — whose duties include investigating complaints made by families about the child welfare system — is trying to get to the bottom of how often caseworkers fabricate records, what their supervisors do about it, and whether the families are told what happened. 

So when the Colorado Department of Human Services mentioned in the rulemaking process this summer that it was aware of 11 suspected incidents of falsification in nine counties in a six-month period, the ombudsman asked for more information. 

The ombudsman’s director of client services, Amanda Pennington, requested the names of the nine counties, the time frames in which the falsification was alleged to have occurred, the case identification numbers in the state child welfare database, and details about how the falsifications were discovered. The request was made in a June 7 letter obtained by The Colorado Sun under public records laws. 

The office “consistently hears from clients who believe that false, biased or insufficient child welfare records have negatively impacted them,” Pennington wrote. In addition, the ombudsman “has received several complaints regarding the misconduct of child welfare staff, often including concerns that these staff have falsified records.”

Instead of sending the requested information, the state human services department responded that “child case files and records are highly confidential.” Child welfare officials do not have to release case information to the child protection ombudsman unless the ombudsman provides a specific child or family’s case, the state agency said in a June 21 response. 

A week later, the ombudsman’s office tried again, arguing that state law does not require the ombudsman to cite a specific child’s case in order to access information. In fact, the office “is tasked with not only accepting cases that involve systemic concerns, but it also charges the agency with proactively identifying systemic issues and analyzing such issues,” its letter said.

The ombudsman is currently investigating five suspected falsification cases that expose “systemic failures” by counties and the state, including that families were not told about the misconduct and that staff involved in the misconduct continued to keep working with families, the ombudsman’s office told the state. 

Without more information about the 11 suspected cases the state child welfare division knows about, the ombudsman is “unable to corroborate” whether they are the same ones its office is investigating and “will not be able to effectively determine the scale of the systemic issues alleged,” the letter said. 

When the state human services department again refused, the ombudsman’s office fired off a request under the Colorado Open Records Act, a move normally used by journalists and citizens who are trying to obtain information from government agencies. 

Human services department wants $60 deposit

The human services department responded July 16 that it would charge the ombudsman $30 per hour to research, retrieve and redact the requested documents. A $60 deposit was required, by check, money order or wire transfer. The work was expected to take a minimum of three hours, and the first hour is free, the department said. 

“By law, every state agency is allowed to charge CORA requestors, regardless of who they are, a per-hour rate to research, retrieve and redact responsive records,” human services spokesperson Jordan Saenz said in an email to The Sun on Monday. The agency “applies this policy consistently across requestors so as to make the process fair and equitable to everyone who may request a record.”

The ombudsman’s office has not yet paid the fee because it’s still figuring out how best for one state agency to transfer the money to the other. 

The nature of the relationship between the state’s child watchdog and the state child welfare department is adversarial, but this is the first time the ombudsman has tried to get information from the human services department through the Colorado Open Records Act. 

The ombudsman’s office was created in 2010, the legislature’s response to public outcry after it was revealed that 12 children died from abuse and neglect in 2007 even though they were known to child protection caseworkers. And in 2015, after the ombudsman at the time accused state officials of interfering in a child death investigation, the legislature made the office independent of the state child welfare department.

New policy doesn’t include caseworker decertification

The two agencies have been working to strengthen the laws regarding bad caseworkers after a string of high-profile cases in recent years. 

In Larimer County last year, a child protection worker was accused of lying about interviewing at least 10 families. In Moffat County in 2020, investigators found at least 50 child abuse reports that contained fake details, all written by a caseworker who fabricated stories about checking on children. And in Denver in 2015, a child protection worker lied in her paperwork to make it look like she had checked on a newborn baby born with marijuana in her system. Two months later, the baby was killed by her mother. 

Under state regulations, if there is no criminal case, no one has to know about the past behavior — not the caseworker’s potential new employer or even the children and parents whose records were falsified. Counties aren’t even required to tell the state Division of Child Welfare. 

A new policy approved this month by the state Board of Human Services stipulates that counties must complete an investigation into suspected falsification of records even if the caseworker resigns or is terminated. When there is a confirmed case of falsification, the county must notify the state within three days, law enforcement within 10 days, and the parents or guardians of the child involved within 10 days. 

Some advocates for children and families, including the ombudsman’s office, were critical of the new rules because they do not include a process for stripping caseworkers of their certification, which would prevent them from getting a job in another county.

“I don’t think we’ve gone far enough,” said board vice chair and family law attorney Mychael Dave, the only board member to vote against the new rules. “I think the right direction is for us to pause and actually fix this. My fear is that it won’t get fixed because there is a countervailing push from the counties. The counties’ desire to make sure they get their personnel issues right, which I respect, is secondary to making sure we protect these children and their families.” 

State human services officials were asked to return to the board in six months to report on progress toward developing a caseworker de-certification process.