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City Creates Community Care Specialist Position to Help Address Social Issues
Covington is a small but growing, family friendly community, yet we are not immune to the surge of social challenges affecting cities across the nation, including increasing homelessness, spiking costs of living, a growing mental health crisis, substance use problems, and more. Some are the typical growing pains of a young city experiencing rapid development that require our decisive responses, and others go beyond city authority, such as navigating state laws, and court and judicial decisions impacting our current law enforcement.
If you ask Covington’s City Council, many of them identify public safety and mental health support as Covington’s urgent priorities. The two issues are often intertwined. Councilmember Jennifer Harjenhausen states, “We do not have enough access to services in our community to address the rising behavioral and mental health issues at hand. Lack of access not only impacts the quality of life of our residents but plays a fundamental role in crime, homelessness, and safety in our schools.”
While the City is urging legislature to pass public safety-centric laws aimed at protecting the community through safe and accountable police service, City Council concluded that beyond our current enforcement, Covington needs to implement non-traditional public safety strategies that help mitigate these escalating issues now. Some strategies included implementing principles of Community Policing Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and launching a “Clean Team” to remove litter and graffiti to keep Covington clean and inviting.
Most significantly, City Council approved the addition of a Community Care Specialist (CCS) to Covington’s Human Services team. This new position is part of a key strategy to keep pace with the rise of social issues in the community. The CCS position was created to provide a level of expertise, flexibility, and nuance to assist the broader operations of law enforcement. The CCS identifies the needs of an individual in crisis and acts as a bridge to community and agency resources and services.
On joining the City in 2022, the CCS began developing contacts and building relationships with human service providers in our area. Agency partnerships are critical to addressing the City’s human service needs; there is no one idea or person or agency that can alone address the vast spectrum of social issues that have compounded the crisis of unhoused people in Covington as well as its effects on our other residents. It takes a community’s collaboration and support to find solutions for the myriad challenges we are facing.
On a daily basis, the CCS assists our police department and agencies with helping individuals reported to be in need of aid. Our CCS also often responds with officers to calls when the person-in-need is already known to officers and has outstanding or recurring issues that are not being resolved through the permitted channels of police enforcement. In November 2022, our CCS also began working in the field to proactively establish contact with individuals.
Continue reading about our Community Care Specialist's roles, interactions and background by clicking the button below.
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