Over 580 counties across the United States are part of the Stepping-Up Initiative, including Lehigh County. The goal is to help those struggling with mental illness to stay out of jail, providing them with the tools and support they need to avoid incarceration or reincarceration.

Commissioner Bob Elbich, a champion of this cause, spoke about its importance during his last board meeting before retiring Dec. 13. “This is not a short-term program. We are at the very beginning of it, and it’s going to be a few years before we get some real data you can start to use for analysis, and so forth. The county has worked very hard to put together the baseline.” He invited Director of Forensic Services Drew Taylor to speak about the program, which received full board approval in March.

Taylor said the main points of the program include identifying adolescents and adults with serious mental illness, and/or intellectual disabilities in the community criminal justice system, or those folks who are in jeopardy of entering the Lehigh County criminal justice system.

According to Taylor, the principles guiding this program are safety, accountability, empowerment and advocacy.

Along with Sgt. Benjamin Lobst and Officer TC Cunningham, both of the Allentown Police Department, Taylor received special training with other first responders with the help of Lehigh Crisis Intervention.

From new hires to others who have been on the force for some time, Taylor sits down and offers special mental health training to best serve the needs of each police department in the county.

The expansion of the intervention aspect grew in 2017 with Pinebrook Family Matters, which employs four community health specialists who serve the county’s police departments. Upper Macungie Police use The Hub model, which includes monthly team meetings with various resources. The Emmaus Police Department has a similar model.

Taylor also spoke about CARE (Corrections Assessment Re-entry Endeavor), introduced in 2020. “This offers a person who are incarcerated in Lehigh Valley County Jail a menu of mental health services.” Those services range from diagnostics to counseling, all to help with the re-entry process.

Elbich, Dave Harrington and Zakiya Smalls were all recognized for their work as commissioners.

Reflecting on his years as a commissioner and seeing the inner workings of the county, Elbich said, “It’s a very complex system, it’s very important. More importantly, I got to see how professional the county staff is.”

Harrington spoke of the challenges in helping residents of the county during the pandemic. “I would think that 2020 was one of the most eventful years for a first year in government. That we were able to not only steer the county through it to come out of it, what I think, stronger board with more policies in place to help people in Lehigh County with changes that needed to be done.”

Smalls said, “What I’ve learned in the legislative process, the role of local counties, local government plays is so much greater then what most people would think.” She also spoke of the challenges of balancing public office and being a mom.

All chose not to run again at the end of their term.