Quinte West city council approved the motion of making Feb. 11 2-1-1 Day in the municipality.
By Laural Samson [1]
QUINTE WEST – National 2-1-1 Day on Feb. 11 will be coming to Quinte West, city council decided Monday night.
The decision came after council heard a presentation about the importance of 2-1-1 [2] from Tracey Legault-Davis, a 2-1-1 outreach co-ordinator for Hastings and Prince Edward counties.
The 2-1-1 number is what residents can call when they have questions about government services. Examples given by Legault-Davis include questions about COVID-19 assessment centres, food banks and government offices. The number is intended to reduce non-emergency calls to 911.
“We are the first point for access to human services throughout Ontario,” Legault-Davis said, adding that “2-1-1 is a public information and referral services that is across Ontario.”
The 2-1-1 number is to for those who don’t know whom to call to get answers to their questions.
Coun. Sally Freeman spoke in favour of the service, with which she has had some involvement.
“The reason I got involved with 2-1-1 is because we were getting a lot of these calls to 911, and we cannot have an emergency number taken up with that sort of thing. But there (were) a lot of needy people out there,” Freeman said.
Legault-Davis said there have been issues with spreading information about the importance of the 2-1-1 number.
“It’s been going very well, except getting the word out,” she said.
Freeman agreed that traditional methods of promoting the number have not been working.
“I know we’ve tried to get the word out with signage around city hall and various places, but nowadays everything is closed. So that is not working.”
With the decision to make Feb. 11 dedicated to 2-1-1, council hopes to spread the word.
Mayor Jim Harrison said the city will continue to brainstorm ways to get the message out, but has already made big leaps toward spreading awareness about the 2-1-1 number.
“This is one big task,” Harrison said. “We’ve come a long way.”