County creates new positions for Family First Community Pathways project

JEFF HORVATH, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
·2 min read

Lackawanna County commissioners approved a dozen new positions for the proposed Family First Community Pathways project — the county’s innovative plan to better serve vulnerable children and families.

Designed to keep more families out of the child welfare system and relieve pressure on the county’s understaffed Office of Youth and Family Services, the project pending state approval aims to address the root causes of issues through early intervention and support services provided by community partners.

Acting Tuesday in their capacity as the county salary board, Commissioners Bill Gaughan, Matt McGloin and Chris Chermak voted to create a $65,000-per-year program manager position and nine community health navigator positions with annual salaries of $40,000. They also created a community health nurse position and changed the title of a vacant post to community health nurse at an annual salary of $50,000.

The state will reimburse 80% of the personnel costs, officials said.

All those positions will work within the Pathways program, which will have a public health framework, once it’s approved by the state. Among other duties, program employees will work to identify vulnerable families and connect them to appropriate housing, violence prevention, nutrition, maternal health and other services rendered by community-based organizations.

In announcing the plan earlier this month, Gaughan and McGloin also announced the shuttering of the county’s fledgling Department of Health, describing it as financially unfeasible. About 16 of 26 laid off Health Department employees have expressed interest in serving the county in other capacities, potentially within the Pathways program.

They’ll have an opportunity to interview for the positions created Tuesday.

“We still want to move forward with employing many of the individuals who were part of that Department of Health in other ... human services roles,” interim county Human Services Director Barbara Durkin said. “We have a lot of people that we’re looking to retain from the Department of Health to do this work.”

Gaughan said the Pathways program will “steer vulnerable families to the services that they need so that the Office of Youth and Family Services’ intervention will not be necessary in most cases.”

“These new positions make it possible for many of the former Department of Health personnel to apply their skills in mitigating the public health emergency inherent in conditions like poverty, domestic violence, substance abuse, illiteracy and more that lead to the need for services from OYFS,” he said.

The salary board also voted to raise the hourly pay for part-time youth and family workers from $16 to $35 and to create six more of those part-time posts, giving the county a total of 12.

It’s part of a broader effort to bolster the child protection agency grappling staffing challenges and a backlog of more than 700 cases.

Some former OYFS workers have expressed a willingness to return in a part-time capacity to help address the backlog, Durkin said.