PREVENTION & HUMAN SERVICES
Cumberland County spends the bulk of its resources on human services. Human services are good things and we should be grateful that we have excellent people working at the county who are committed to the quality delivery of those services. In case you were wondering, our human services include, but are certainly not limited to, Children and Youth Services, the Commission for Women, Drug and Alcohol Commission, Mental Health and Veterans Affairs.
I’ve attended many public meetings throughout my time as your Commissioner, meeting with county employees and stakeholders. I believe that as a county we are spending our time and money fixing problems rather than preventing them; we are concentrating on putting out fires. I’d like to get the county on a path to prevention of those fires. For example, Children and Youth Services focus on caring for children who live in families that struggle with addiction. Investing our resources in addiction prevention would save countless amounts in terms of our humanity. It would also save our money in the long run. We should also invest in truly supporting people who are in recovery. Preventing initial addiction and preventing relapse will benefit families, employers, schools and public safety. It will reduce the population in our county jail and allow people to live peaceful, productive lives.
Approximately 40% of the cases the District Attorney sees are domestic violence cases. It’s time to really work on preventing domestic violence and on supporting families working on recovery. Prevention and support are the keys to reducing this problem in the future.
Our county is not putting the necessary resources into our infrastructure. Investments in preventive maintenance at the facilities level and investments in technology will save our county money in the long run and help our employees do their jobs efficiently and effectively .
Prevention is one of the keys to truly making Cumberland a great place to live. It’s far reaching, immeasurable effects are an enormous piece of the path to a terrific future.
