More than 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.

Lehigh County Commissioner Bob Elbich, a champion of this cause, spoke about its importance during the Dec. 13, 2023, meeting.

“This is not a short-term program,” Elbich said. “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.”

Elbich invited Director of Forensic Services Drew Taylor to speak on the program, which received full board approval in March 2023.

Taylor spoke of the main points of the program, “which 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 with Allentown Police Department, Taylor received special training with other first responders on how to best handle emergency response with the help of Lehigh Crisis Intervention.

Taylor also spoke about CARE (Corrections Assessment Reentry Endeavor), introduced in 2020.

“This offers a person who is incarcerated in Lehigh County Jail a menu of mental health services,” he said.

Services range from diagnostics to counseling, all to help with the reentry process.

Also at the meeting, Commissioners Elbich, Dave Harrington and Zakiya Smalls were all recognized for their work as commissioners. All chose not to run again at the end of their term.

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 pandemic and the challenges faced by the board to help the residents in a time of need.

“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, a stronger board with more policies in place to help people in Lehigh County with changes that needed to be done,” Harrington said.

“What I’ve learned in the legislative process, the role of local counties, local government plays is so much greater than what most people would think,” Smalls said.

She also spoke of the challenges of balancing public office and being a mom.