Did you know there are many local human service resources in Monroe County and surrounding areas to assist patients, neighbors or others trying to cope with the pandemic and other stresses – sources for food, clothing, shelter, mental health support and many other needs?  Calling 2-1-1 or going to https://211lifeline.org/ can provide information to help address those issues. 

STEP is in the process of merging ESD’s many resources onto 211Lifeline’s platform to expand the availability of important information to a wider audience.  Because of the delays due to COVID, educational links for upcoming classes, webinars, and other informational sites for healthcare and other human service providers are still being maintained at https://emergencyservicesdirectory.org/EducationalLinks for the time being, but many COVID-related links are available on both sites.  

STEP's goal is to continue to provide educational resources to our health and safety professionals through the 2-1-1 site while also expanding to include health-related organizations and educational web resources to the general community.  

Watch for more news about this exciting mutual project!!

Black Button Distilling in Rochester NY is producing ethanol based hand sanitizer for the medical community, to be sold at cost. The first batch has been made according to the FDA regulations.  

From Black Button's President, Jason Barrett:

"Doctors, hospitals, paramedics, nursing homes, first responders, daycares, homeless shelters, foster care facilities, rehabilitation facilities, medical clinics and other high risk populations should use the link below and password to place there order. Deliveries will flow as fast as possible.

https://www.blackbuttondistilling.com/hand-sanitizer

Password: BBDcovid19 (password is case sensitive)

Parties outside of Monroe County should check back regularly as we grow our delivery area and are able to make more available. The situation is developing rapidly and we are responding as fast as possible.

Any questions should be directed to cheers@blackbuttondistilling.com"

The 2020 STEP Conference will be held April 3-4, 2020 with a preconference on April 2^nd at the Hilton Garden Inn at College Town, 30 Celebration Drive, Rochester, NY 14620. Speakers from EMS, Fire & other health and public safety arenas will discuss medical, trauma, pediatric and operational topics among others.  There is also a specific fire-related track (not-eligible for EMS CME credits in most cases).  Additionally, this year workshops include two of the mandated topics required for those providers using the NYS EMS CME recertification process (EMS Mental Health on Saturday afternoon and 2 chances for Safe Transport of Children either Saturday morning or afternoon).

This year STEP is happy to welcome participation by the Monroe Livingston Regional EMS Council (MLREMS), who will be presenting their annual awards at Friday morning's breakfast, while the presentation of STEP's annual awards will be at Saturday morning’s breakfast.

As in past years, the vendor area will be open from 7:30am to 4pm on Friday, while on Saturday, the vendor area will be open until after lunch. For the full conference, including breakfast and buffet lunch both days, plus the usual breaks, and coffee all day both days, the fee for attendees is only $195. Additional pricing for a single day, or for the preconference can be found on the registration site.

For attendee registration or information go to: https://conta.cc/36WDQWF

For vendor information or registration go to: https://conta.cc/2tathAS

Hotel rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn are available at a special conference rate until March 12^th.  For further information about hotel reservations or other conference-related questions, contact sharon.chiumento@stepcouncil.org  

Information on nominations for the Lloyd Leve or Joanna awards or the Chloe Alexson scholarship can be found by going to the STEP website page http://stepems.org/awards.html  The deadline for nomination letters is March 1^st .

The conference agenda is as follows:

Because of the budget process in Albany, NYS Director of EMS & Trauma, Ryan Greenburg will not be able to attend this year's conference.  However, his deputy, Steve Dziura will be sharing new initiatives and other changes related to EMS in a plenary session on Saturday morning March, 30th at 9am.  This is also a switch in time as Dr Jeremy Cushman will do his popular "What's Hot and What's Not in EMS" 2019 edition at the Friday March 29th plenary session at 1pm.

Time is growing short, so please sign up at http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=uk6o6uvab&oeidk=a07... you are able to join us at the 2019 STEP Conference!!