{"id":97719,"date":"2026-01-27T05:49:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T05:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/97719\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T05:49:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T05:49:06","slug":"new-task-force-launches-to-prevent-sleep-related-infant-deaths-scranton-times-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/97719\/","title":{"rendered":"New task force launches to prevent sleep-related infant deaths \u2013 Scranton Times-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NEPA Sleep Safety Task Force, co-chaired by Meghan Lennox Gagorik, executive cirector of the Children\u2019s Advocacy Center of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and Lackawanna County District Attorney Brian Gallagher, has been launched to address the alarming and preventable trend of sleep-related infant deaths in the region. The initiative was born out of conversations between CAC of NEPA and the DA\u2019s office about how more could be done to protect children before tragedy strikes. Guided by CAC\u2019s mission to promote safety, healing and justice, the task force brings together law enforcement, medical professionals, child welfare agencies and community leaders to educate families, shift cultural practices and ensure every baby in Northeastern Pennsylvania has a safe place to sleep. From left: Chris Kolcharno, Lackawanna County detective; Michael Lydon, Dunmore Police Department; Lackawanna County Judge Andy Jarbola; Lackawanna County Judge Michael Barrasse; Gagorik; Bo Loughney, DA\u2019s office; Jeff Gilroy, Scranton Police Department; Michelle Mancuso, Lackawanna County detective; Gallagher; Cortney Grubbs and Ashley Ceccacci, CAC of NEPA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NEPA Sleep Safety Task Force, co-chaired by Meghan Lennox Gagorik, executive cirector of the Children\u2019s Advocacy Center&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[524,201,182,28,727,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-97719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-community","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-photos-and-videos","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}