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EDITORIAL: Addition of social workers to police departments could benefit communities

3 min read

In June 2020, at the height of the furor surrounding the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, a column on the website Medium was headlined, “We don’t need cops to become social workers.”

That’s true. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with bringing social workers into police departments to work alongside police on the difficult issues and incidents they confront every day. And a growing number of communities are realizing the value of having social workers in their police departments.

Peters Township is the latest. Its council is poised to hire its first social worker, at a salary of $66,000 a year. Peters will be the first Washington County police department to hire a social worker, and it’s following a path that has already been traveled by Mt. Lebanon, which last year brought a social services care coordinator into its police department. Other Allegheny County police departments, including those in O’Hara, Hampton and Ross townships and Baldwin Borough, have added social workers to their police ranks.

Joseph Glover, the Peters police chief, said, “Everybody just raves about their having their social worker, the things they do for the officers. … We’re not equipped to help people in a lot of these situations. Like a hoarder, we don’t have the contacts as police officers. We don’t have the training and things like that to be able to help these folks.”

Police in many locations say that mental health issues are at the root of a large number of calls that they field – in some places as high as 70% to 80%. Proponents say that a police department social worker would be able to do things like follow up with people who have overdosed. They would also be able to assist people who have mental illnesses, are dealing with homelessness or any other number of difficulties, and connect them with assistance in a way that police officers would not be able to. Through this, they would be able to hopefully lighten the workload of police departments.

Police department social workers can also handle certain types of training for municipal staff and officers, and community outreach. Some departments have even had social workers go with officers on select calls.

In another Medium essay, Mike Ward, a retired police chief in Kentucky, wrote about how in his community, a Vietnam veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder regularly summoned officers after waking from nightmares. A social worker who was brought into the department talked with the veteran, connected with his doctor, had his medication adjusted, and talked with the Veterans Administration. After all this, the police did not hear from him for nine months.

We understand that resources are not abundant for municipalities, but hiring social workers for police departments is something other communities in Washington, Greene and Fayette counties should seriously consider.

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