Be proactive, not reactive.

That is the aim of the new Community Assistance, Referral, and Education Services (CARES) program from East Jefferson Fire Rescue.

The program is meant to provide alternative methods of service from 911-dispatch, with a focus on the needs of people who have underlying behavioral health, medical, and lifestyle issues without a need for police intervention.

Starting in January, members of the CARES team began training in Poulsbo where the same concept has already been established.

After a few weeks seeing how these services can be successfully implemented, the team began in earnest in Jefferson County and has since made contact on almost 100 different cases, 20 of which in the last weeks of January and another 70 in February, according to East Jefferson Fire Chief Bret Black.

“The highest concentration of contacts was in the city of Port Townsend and Ludlow. That’s not surprising because that’s where our population is the densest,” Black said.

He also noted that the majority of those contacted are seniors, veterans, or both.

“I think the biggest impact that we’re having is we’re getting referrals to people that normally would not have been accessible to other services or at least they don’t know that they have other services available to them,” Black said.

The city of Port Townsend helped fund the program through June by acting as host agency for a grant of $217,300 from the Association of Washington Cities.

“The county has stepped up with two smaller grants, approximately $50,000 each, that will sustain the program for most of the rest of 2023,” Black said.

The board of fire commissioners for the district plan to address the remaining funds at a future meeting.

“We’re so close to being fully funded for 2023, I don’t see that as a huge hurdle,” Black said, but added that next year would require more grant research and budget considerations.

“This program was really built quickly because of the grant opportunities and without the collaboration from the city and the county partners, we would not have been able to spool this up so quickly,” Black said. “Although we call it Fire CARES, it is truly an interagency collaboration at the grassroots level.”

The team has assisted access to medical devices like wheelchairs, connected clients with their primary care physicians when struggling with technological barriers, and more.

“The connectivity that we’re trying to build is having the CARES team very fluent in the various services that are available in Jefferson County,” Black said.

While firefighters and emergency medical technicians strive to be ready for any crisis, their training does not always include these longer-reach strategies.

“Normally pre-CARES, they would just call 911, and the fire engine or ambulance doesn’t have access to all those resources,” Black said. “They’re tooled really for the crisis, the emergent element of our response mission and not the referral mission, so having the CARES unit that we can hand off the person that still has needs but they may not be an emergency need has been really the glaring success of this whole thing.”

The team makes up to nine visits a day, criss-crossing the county to assist those in need.

“The other day we encountered a person that needed a very important medication, a liver medication,” Black said. “The CARES unit goes out there and finds that the reason they can’t get it is they can’t afford it. It was approximately $1,600.”

The team researched the medication and found a grant to help pay for it, but only one pharmacy in the county accepted this particular grant and the client was unable to get there.

“The CARES unit got his consent and then went and got the prescription from this one pharmacy in Jefferson County and it turned out to be free,” Black said.

“That kind of success story seems to be happening every day,” he added.

While the fire department is often dealing with tragic circumstances, the new program so far has shown promising triumphs.

“I try to start or end my day talking to the CARES team. It’s pretty inspiring that they are able to refer and defer people to what they need to live longer, independent lives,” Black said.