2023 A Look Back: Community Care Award
The Sylva Police Department received grant funding for its Community Care program.
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This year, the Sylva Police Department received a grant from the Dogwood Health Foundation to continue the Community Care Program with a paid, full-time community care liaison position for the next three years.
The Community Care Program places a social worker within the Sylva PD to serve in the role of community care liaison. Their functions are to follow up with citizens involved in police calls for service and to connect victims with community services. This in turn allows the police department to better serve people with issues related substance use, mental health, housing and poverty, by connecting them with the local resources that can help, such as Jackson County Department of Social Services, Meridian, HERE of Jackson County, Center for Domestic Peace, Jackson Neighbors in Need and Rolling Start.
In July, the Sylva PD won the Law Enforcement Agency of the Year Award from the North Carolina Police Executive Association, for its innovation in policing.
