Protecting out Children and Families

childrenKara knows that there is a growing drug epidemic among our youth and yet, in our own 6th precinct we have ONLY ONE school resource officer serving ten high schools. Gang membership is also a problem for teenagers in some Suffolk communities. We need programs in our schools that try to keep kids from using drugs or joining gangs in the first place. The Legislature initiated a very effective program on a pilot basis called CAST – Communities and Schools together. Kara wants to fully assess that and see if it is needed elsewhere. Kara knows we need more school resource officers and more school-based probation officers in the tough schools that are seeing an increase in drug abuse, gang activity and gang violence.

Kara also knows that the County’s 9 health centers that provide primary health care services to tens of thousands, are critical to protecting the health of all of Suffolk’s residents. If we drastically cut back or close any of these centers it will impact all of us. childrenMore and more people will be migrating to the emergency rooms for primary health care.

When you bring your child who has fallen off a bike to the emergency room and you have to sit there for three or more hours next to people who are waiting with the flu or the measles or worse because they had no options for primary care, it’s not just the extra time you have to wait. You and your family are now exposed.

Kara understands that if this happens we will all pay for it. We will pay more in NYS taxes as a result. A lot more. It costs seven times more to treat someone at the ER than it does to treat them at the County Health Center. SEVEN TIMES. We can’t make choices that just push off the costs to other levels of government, especially when doing so sacrifices public health.

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