if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if the the the the good morning everyone welcome to the government center it is my pleasure to have the opportunity to spend a little time this morning talking about our social service needs assessment process that has just recently been completed there's a brazilian proverb that says when we dream alone it is only a dream but when we dream together it is the beginning of reality well that's what this whole process has been about over the last several months starting in august we began to dream together in order to bring about a different reality for social services in lexington process which uh... commissioner marlene helm began involved a number of providers participants uh... and funding agencies it involved over three hundred people uh... including representatives of eighty different agencies in our community a tremendous turnout of uh... folks from all across our community who are actively involved in delivering human services to those in in need in our community i want to to thank all of the participants for their hard work if you uh... look in the in the report itself on uh... page five you'll see a list of people who have participated in this event in leadership roles and i particularly want to thank them for the effort they have made to to make this whole process uh... success however i want to pay special recognition this morning to commissioner marlene helm marlene is the person who instigated this whole process having process having uh... come to the social services department here at urban county government she saw the need to try to bring together all of the constituent groups that were involved in delivering social services here and marlene i want to thank you for the leadership you have shown has been outstanding as always the goal of the process were were multitudinous there were there were many goals uh... we wanted to assess the condition of our social safety net here in the community we wanted to decide where it was we needed to make improvements in the existing social service net we needed to try to identify areas where we were duplicating services or where there were gaps in the services we were providing we needed to take a look at what was happening to our population how was lexington changing and how were our social services needs changing changing what were the trends in the delivery of social services around the country what were the best practices that we might be able to implement and we wanted to try to maintain a focus on the future so that uh... we could identify the changes that were being made in the demands and to set even higher goals for our social service delivery network our participants uh... divided into different focus areas and they produced a number of suggestions uh... the end of which was a sixty seven page report that uh... commissioner helm will discuss in a little more detail in just a few minutes i think the social service needs assessment was a very important exercise for our community for an assortment of reasons first of all we all recognize the fact that there are limited resources uh... particularly in these days for uh... governments to devote to social services and we need to make sure that we are utilizing every dollar to its maximum potential that was uh... a key component for this but just as we can't afford to waste money we also can't afford to fail to address those basic needs of our citizens in many instances citizens who just simply are unable to care for themselves so i think this uh... needs assessment helps us to put some focus on our social service delivery network in our community it helps us to identify problems it helps us to identify strengths and hopefully we can utilize our strengths to more effectively address the problems in the future before i turn the microphone over to commissioner helm uh... i wanna councilmember tom blues who is here with us today we very much appreciate your taking the time to be with us tom and we appreciate all the support you have provided to our social service efforts in the community so without further ado it's my pleasure to uh... turn the microphone over to social service commissioner marlene helm good morning as the mayor indicated last august on a balmy tuesday evening i believe uh... three hundred strong gathered at bractown baptist church for what we were calling a community conversation and we were uh... delighted with the turnout but we also knew that the turnout that evening was just the beginning of the work that uh... was ahead we had a number of people as the mayor has referenced who hung in there and worked with us over about an eight week period looking at six different areas and i want to just remind you what those six areas are we were looking at adults and the adult section work team included uh... needs of veterans included needs of our aging population our seniors uh... we had a work group looking at youth another one looking at young children another one at housing we called one cost-cutting uh... needs because we weren't quite sure that we had something for each area and so we wanted to make sure that we captured everything and then of course we have our special needs category where we understand that it's important to make sure that a vibrant community such as our community such as we know lexington is we know that it can be and we want it to continue to be we know it needs to be vibrant and healthy and in doing so we need to make sure that we are providing the services and the support to those who sometimes struggle to those who may not be doing as well as we would want them to do and we also know that we need to be very conscious of providing quality services and support to those at both ends of the spectrum our little ones and also our seniors because a vibrant healthy community especially one that considers itself in the twenty-first century must address the needs of those two populations uh... especially and so we paid a special attention to that in the work we gave our work team some assumptions and we said we need you to start with the understanding that these things are just givens in our community so let me just quickly remind you of what those are that a vibrant healthy community ensures quality social services available to everyone we recognize that lexington fayette county has a tremendous array of providers and some of them are here today and we are grateful for their partnership and we look forward to continuing to work with them we know that we have the potential for even more and we know that that will occur if we are working together we must have a comprehensive plan we must communicate well and often and we must make sure that we are uh... again focused on the outcomes and not on any issue that would divert our attention again we know that a community that is vibrant such as lexington that the needs of its people social service needs especially are going to be ever-changing we're now into the eighth year of the twenty-first century and we look a lot different than we did on nine years ago or ten years ago and we know that we need to be willing to accept and embrace change and to continue to move forward we know that our community has a well-documented history of providing excellence in this particular area and we want to ensure that that excellence continues and we know we knew before we started and we know now that uh... the first phase of our work is over that we have more work to do and i think again from the uh... participation in the process from those who are here this morning we are going to have a celebration and really share the report fuller this afternoon we know that we will again have uh... great support and great participation we ask each work group to consider four guiding questions as they uh... consider their work what are the social services that uh... the Fayette lexington Fayette county community should ensure to all residents what are the consequences of not ensuring that those social services are provided what are the gaps and based on those gaps what recommendations would they have for us as we move to the next phase we had a couple of key findings uh... i'll just talk briefly about a couple of them housing transportation and mental health services were vibrant threads throughout almost every work group whether it was housing whether it was youth whether it was adult and seniors we found that we need to continue to do uh... a better job and a more a stringent job of making sure that our community is aware of both two one one and three one one as a way to make sure that they have ease of access and knowledge of the services that are available the issue of a neighborhood place a one-stop model uh... again was one of those threads that wound its way through almost every uh... report if you are going to be conscientious of the services that you're providing and the need for those who are using services to have ease of access we need to ensure that those who are most vulnerable are not the ones that are having to uh... go all around the community to get the services that they need so the one-stop model again is a very strong key finding and a very strong recommendation uh... we also found out that LFUCG although we're not expected to provide all of the services uh... we do have a number of agencies that really look to LFUCG to provide guidance and leadership they look to LFUCG to be the convener and the facilitator for the discussions and so i think we need to embrace that role even more and understand and appreciate what is expected of us from the community let me very quickly tell you about the top recommendations or what we were calling ideal outcomes the first one deals with youth uh... our youth work team felt very very strongly that we need a youth development director a single individual if you will who would man an office or woman an office uh... so that we have programs that are available to youth of our community regardless of where they live regardless of their interest or their needs uh... something someone who would convene all of the current youth service providers and make sure that we are knowledgeable about what those programs are that we identify the gaps and that we include the voices of the youth in helping to plan those programs i think often we forget that uh... we need to include their thinking in that process i've mentioned the one stop service model we are very excited we've got a work group already looking at the neighborhood place concept this is a concept that is in the community of Louisville Jefferson County they have eight neighborhood places and again this is a combination of of local state regional and community service providers all operating out of a single uh... facility if you will so that again those citizens needing a variety of services are not having to transport themselves all across the community to get them and we think this is a a concept that we really need to focus on very very strongly rental assistance we are finding that we have a number of agencies both faith based and civic that are attempting to provide rental assistance utility assistance and they've even admitted that they really that's not their focus that's not their forte they'd like to get out of that business and would really like for someone the united way or or DSS to step up and help them to do a more efficient and a more a coordinated effort at providing this very needed service the service providers who participated also said you know this is a pretty good idea getting together we might want to do this on an annual basis so that we can share new programs share areas where we're struggling often there are grants that are available that require collaboration among different types of agencies and this service social service provider summit would allow us to do that would also allow us to do uh... some interaction with our partners at the state level as well independent living was another a top recommendation again we know that we are a community that has uh... individuals that have uh... physical challenges especially uh... or challenges with other kinds of disabilities we want to be known we want lexington to be known as one of the most accessible communities in our country and in order to do that we've got some work to do there is a commission currently working on uh... this issue and we want to be full-fledged partners with that and also to do our data tells us that we have about forty two thousand individuals in our community with identified disabilities that means that at some point in time they are going to need a service or support and again we don't want these individuals having to uh... transport themselves all over the community in order to get the information the support and the services that they need and deserve mental health and substance abuse uh... this is an issue that is affecting our youngest population our youngest residents as well as those who go into adulthood and we have some ideas about that perhaps a mental health crisis team or a mobile crisis team we also know that we probably need to make more mental health and crisis services available twenty four seven because not everyone has a need uh... between the hours of eight and five there's a new concept called navigator concept that we are very interested in following up in uh... navigators take clients to agencies navigators don't necessarily have a connection to one agency or the other they do case management at a different type of level uh... often we get clients who've already been to several agencies and you know they've they've told the same story ten times and we've probably had that that happen as well you make a call and you tell your issue or challenge to one person and then after they've heard you they they say I need to shift you to someone else and you have to say it all over again navigators help those who most need a variety of services and they do the navigating for them the concept is exactly what it says they become the navigator for the individual there was also a recommendation that uh... DSS do more in the area of diversity and sensitivity training and the recommendation is that perhaps we look at having a unity council a unity council would allow us to convene and partner with others focused on this and uh... help us to uh... do the research about our demographics and appreciate and understand that Lexington as a vibrant community has a very multicultural and ever-changing uh... demographic and this would help us to to stay up with that particular trend and then last but certainly not least uh... affordable housing that seems to be uh... that gas prices seems to be the issue of the day affordable housing trust we know that the mayor has recently appointed a task force that will begin to to really delve into this issue and the needs assessment certainly has supported the issue of affordable housing it is such a basic need and that what we know is that it is at the core if you will of almost uh... every issue that we can think of related to social service having a place that you can feel comfortable that you can lay your head you know that it's yours uh... you know that you're safe and secure there is extremely important and we have in the report there are some statistics that tell you a little bit about those who we have found to be marginally housed in other words those who are expending uh... thirty to fifty percent and more of their income to provide uh... their housing and so we know that affordable housing trust is a concept that's working in other communities as is uh... the concept of land banks and we're saying that lexington certainly needs to step up and get into into that we had a couple of honorable mentions uh... i'm just gonna mention one and that really is youth programming because i think that the issue of youth is so critical to our community to any community that is vibrant and healthy we need to make sure that the programming for our youth especially that programming that falls outside of the school outside of the school day or the school year is strong is focused and is really helping our youth to prepare for the next phase of their life because after all one day they're going to be standing here where you are doing exactly the same kinds of jobs and uh... we need to make sure that we're as a community helping the schools and parents and our religious organizations to prepare these young ones for the future and then for our department we know that uh... we uh... continue to be seen as as leaders and it's it's incumbent upon us to continue to look at ourselves to check our work to make sure that we have measurable outcomes and annual work plans for all that we do we're looking internally our next step is really to take the results of this and move forward to develop a strategic plan with action plans and annual work plans to make sure that we help the community to move forward in this regard we believe that what we have accomplished what we have done is not the end in reality it's just the beginning we've taken the first step and there is no ending this is an ongoing process it's a continuum and as i look out at everyone that's here let me thank all of you that are here we've got a number of uh... members of our department of social services staff and other members of uh... urban county government we thank you for your support because a a project of this magnitude could not have been accomplished without the input and work and support of a number of different offices from our gtb three staff uh... to our our copiers our clerical staff we just really appreciate all that you have done and we look forward to continuing as we move forward to implement some of these recommendations ideas and suggestions so thank you again i certainly will be more than happy to take questions but again thank you very much let me just say one or two concluding words uh... first of all i think you can understand why i am honored to serve with uh... commissioner hill she has done an outstanding job and has pulled together a number of great folks to do some great work and i'm very appreciative of all the effort that you've made near the end of lexington's second century a transylvania historian by the name of john wright said that the challenge for lexington's third century was going to be whether or not we would have leaders in our community who would recognize the need to balance not only our physical needs and our economic needs and our cultural needs but also our human needs that's what today is all about so often in urban county government we spend time talking about roads and parks and police and fire protection and all of that is very important we have to do those things we talk about the arts and culture here from time to time but today is an opportunity for us to focus on that fourth dimension that professor wright identified twenty five thirty years ago and that's our human needs someone once said a society is judged by the way in which it treats the least of its citizens well i'm here to tell you that lexington will be judged as a city by the way in which we treat the least of our citizens today we're making a major step towards improving the fashion in which we do that commissioner helm thank you very much if there are any questions we'll be glad to try to answer well we recognize that uh... some of these ideas and suggestions are going to require dollars and i think we have to make the case uh... it's easy to ask for money but i think we have to first outline what it is we need those funds for make our case tell our story and then work with the council and the mayor to make sure that the funding for these are are included what you may not know is that uh... the recommendation that was included in the mayor's budget this year uh... most of our partner agencies were uh... slated for a ten percent cut as were most of the offices and departments within urban county government the mayor did not cut the social service agencies and in some cases they ended up even getting additional money because again i think we're beginning to make the case that these are agencies that simply and programs that simply cannot uh... be the first one cut they just simply cannot be because this is critical to the health and vibrancy of our community i would also add that one of the critical elements in terms of building public confidence in that we're spending what money we have responsibly is making sure that we're spending it in the most cost effective fashion possible that's what this needs assessment was all about making sure that we identified what the problems were that we eliminated the duplication where possible and that we then took our resources and filled the gaps as best we can if we identify gaps i'm confident there'll be uh... public support to fill those gaps any other questions thank you very much and do and uh... stand uh... tom here yes in down the mean it not mom okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you're watching government television channel 3 a service of the Lexington Fayette urban county government if you have questions or comments concerning any of the services offered by the urban county government visit our website at www.lfucg.com or call lex call at 425-2255 that's 425-2255 welcome to keeping the peace hello my name is assistant chief James Jackson hi and I'm officer Debbie Wagner we'd like to welcome you to the Lexington division of police show keeping the peace keeping the peace well we're keeping the peace we're keeping the peace well we're keeping the peace we're keeping the peace well we're keeping the peace today we salute congressman Ben Chandler for securing federal funding for Lexington's new thermal imager the thermal imager will be used on Lexington's police helicopter air support one fighting crime and saving lives so next on focus on police let's watch the news release on Lexington's latest technology the thermal imager this is an unusual announcement because we are bringing to Lexington a piece of technology that central Kentucky has not had in the past it's a piece of technology that I believe will materially make our people safer it's a thermal imaging unit it is a unit that will be attached and used with this helicopter behind me and what it will do and and I'm going to have the chief or some of his folks will tell you in greater detail about what it's going to but basically it will be used to find people who are lost at night it has an advantage at night in particular with the thermal imaging but it will also be able to get fugitives find fugitives people who are hiding from justice and bring them to justice and we're excited about this technology I understand that it's not going to be solely for the use of Lexington and and urban county but it's also going to be used all over this region so it'll be a resource for all of the people of central Kentucky and I'm just so proud to be a part of it the thermal imaging equipment that we will purge with this funding will significantly increase the capabilities of our air support unit and and thus the ability to serve the citizens of Fayette County and surrounding counties the addition of this system will make us one of only three agencies that I'm aware of in Kentucky that have the this state-of-the-art capability I think it's important that we note that this technology is also going to be shared and we are going to be using it regionally we've been called upon already many times to bring our air support services to jurisdictions surrounding Lexington when we go and with this new technology we're going to be able to take a capability that will greatly enhance what we do and that's going to be a shared technology basically thermal imaging works kind of like a video camera if you look at the posters we have set up here those are those are thermal images a normal video camera picks up the differences of light a thermal imager picks up infrared energy everything out here emits different temperatures or different degrees in heat the human body for example really emits a high energy heat source if you look on the poster here to your right clearly see the individual that's from it's from a zoom up distance and then from it from it from an expanded viewpoint from a very large distance you'll see the image there in the center of the screen the technology allows us allows us to get into the into the 21st century it allows us to do a very very good job of locating persons whether they're lost or they're wanted by the police department very often we're called out by Project Lifesaver all the flight crew and several officers of the division of police are trained in Project Lifesaver and what that what that program is is you have people that are that are mentally handicapped out here in the community and they sign up this program and there's a transmitter on their wrist we have the receivers inside the aircraft located but sometimes we can't actually pinpoint them and what this imaging thermal imagery allows to do would be able to see them on screen and what is what is equally as important we're able to record these images on our helicopters we can pull that image out off the recorder and if they're lost we can we can play it back especially a human interest story that the media is interested in or if it's evidence in a crime we can record that we can record it and put it into evidence it makes the community a lot safer not only for the public but the officers out here for example if there's there's just one effusive out in the neighborhood they can't see behind every little nook and cranny if the person is the open we can call ahead and say hey we have a heat source here isn't these you need to look out for watch yourself otherwise we've been referred to or we have to pin on them on this night Sun which we can't always can't see very well at night so it's going to enhance officer safety and public safety out here another thing it does too is it has a great zoom range on it we can get up at altitude and we can zoom in do surveillance on on on any kind of crime or anything that that's of interest to us when you do when we do can do conduct a search out here we conduct it more effectively and we can probably conclude that search a lot faster which will free up resources so it's really it's a cost savings to the community as well another thing it'll do it'll help us on evidence retrieval say everything that we everything that's out here that the imager sees has a certain produces a certain certain thermal image and we're able to detect that so I'm just I'm just one of the of the tactical flight officers officer Steve White is there other tactical flight officers who will be using this equipment the police department sent us to LAPD last year for extensive TFO training and part of that training was in thermal imaging so we're really excited to get this technology on board to really really out here to enhance our capabilities and and I'll go out on a limb I'll say within the first 90 days once we're trained on this this we're going to save somebody's life out here and it'll more and make it for any calls that we have Good morning. Hi, I'm Mayor Jim Newbeer and I'd like to talk to you about some important telephone numbers. For fire, theft, and accidents, please call 911. 311 is the number you need to dial for all city services like garbage pickup, sanitary sewers, traffic, and much more. Calling 211 connects you to local health and human services provided through the United Way. Remember, 911 is for emergencies, 211 is for health and human services, and 311 is your connection to City Hall. I'm Detective Robert Sarantonio with Bluegrass Crime Stoppers. Now we're going to show you several wanted people that Lexington Police are looking for. If you have any information on this, please call us at Crime Stoppers. It's anonymous at 859-253-2020 or star 2020 from your AT&T cellular telephone. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Thank you for watching the Crime Stoppers segment. If you have any information on any of these people that were featured, please call me at 859-253-2020 and star 2020 from your AT&T cellular phone. And remember, this is anonymous. All we want is your information, not your name. And now, stay tuned for more on Government TV Channel 3. 311 is for Health and Human Services, and 311 is your connection to City Hall. On Smart Tips, you'll meet our own Sergeant Mike Wright. Sergeant Wright is one of our instructors for the Division of Police on driver safety issues. So, if you will, let's look at a video clip of Sergeant Wright giving us information we need to know as we drive about through Fayette County. ♪♪ Today, we're honored to have with us Sergeant Mike Wright. And Sergeant Wright is a driving instructor for the Police Department, and you've been an instructor over seven years. And also, he teaches our Citizens Police Academy, and he is also a prestigious member of the Emergency Response Unit, and also a Sergeant over the Mounted Unit. I don't know how you have any time to even be on the show today, but we really appreciate you being here because Sergeant Wright is going to give you some tips and tools for your toolbox on how to keep safe while driving. When people are getting into the vehicle or looking over the vehicle before getting in, what are some of the things they might look for? A lot of the main things is just general maintenance that a lot of people take for granted. We drive every day, and we really don't think to look for some of the small things and just notice if we have a flat tire or checking our lights to make sure that our headlights are working before we go out. You don't normally see brake lights, so sometimes you need to have somebody help you with that and make sure that your brake lights are working, and you're not going to know unless somebody else tells you or you check that with somebody or another family member. Just general maintenance, windshield wipers, making sure it's nice to know that your windshield wipers are falling apart before the big rain comes. Just general maintenance things. What about young drivers? What would be some of the tips that you could give them and also to their parents? Because sometimes it might not be them, but maybe the passengers involved that might get them in trouble when they're driving. Yeah, I think sometimes, again, we take it for granted. People drive and drive and drive and aren't involved in an accident themselves or a collision themselves, and sometimes we get a little too comfortable with it. And sometimes, again, when you're in that back seat and you're horsing around or playing around with your buddies on the way to school, not realizing that it's very distracting to the person driving and they're going to miss that ice patch in the road because they're turning around looking at their buddy or listening to the joke that's being told or something like that. That and just time. Everybody waits to the last minute to do things,