BOSTON (SHNS) – A future Baker administration press event could spotlight the role human services workers have played during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hosting a conversation with Gov. Charlie Baker during a virtual Providers’ Council conference, Michael Weekes, the organization’s president, and CEO told Baker that he didn’t think many members of the public understood the human service workforce’s role as “the other first responders,” and asked how his group might work with the administration to make sure Massachusetts residents “recognize the essential role that our workforce plays in the health of the commonwealth.”
Baker told Weekes he’d like to talk to him more about how to do that, and mentioned that he’s brought in doctors, nurses and first responders to speak at his COVID-19 press conferences.
“We should probably do something with some of the folks in your community, and maybe do a couple of events like that to highlight that work,” he said.
The governor said he would “like to come up with some way to amplify not just the contribution but, honestly, the creativity and the discipline and the perseverance and the imagination that the folks in your community, our community, bring to the work that they do.”
Baker, who served as health and human services secretary under Gov. William Weld, said “it’s quite clear a lot of people watch” the live-streamed press events “based on the incoming email and letters that we get.”