Social workers in Sycamore Police Department: how the new system is aiding crisis intervention

SYCAMORE – Months after demands were made across the country to reallocate money for social workers to respond to calls instead of police, Sycamore police and local mental health officials say a program with both groups helping to respond to crisis intervention calls is going so well, they are looking to expand the program soon.

Sycamore Police Chief Jim Winters said the idea isn’t as new to the department as the public might think. He said the police department started reporting crisis intervention incidents in 2019, with about 22 such reports recorded. As police started to better establish its reporting process for those calls, Winters said, there were 105 such reports recorded in 2020 and 21 reports thus far in 2021.

“The goal of that reporting was not only to document the frequency … but so we could pass it on to mental health professionals so that person can be offered some additional support if needed,” Winters said.

Winters said the police department worked out an information sharing agreement with Northwestern Medicine Ben Gordon Center in DeKalb in the summer of 2020 to have one social worker accompany police on those types of calls and to follow up with additional services after those types of calls.

Social worker call response

Kim Volk, director of behavioral health services at Northwestern Medicine Ben Gordon Center in DeKalb, said the social worker who has been working with Sycamore Police Department has followed up on 90 calls since the summer of 2020, with about 10% of those calls being on the scene.

Volk said the original pilot program dedicated 10 hours a week to the police department but those hours have been expanding. She said the goal is to provide 20 hours of social work coverage per week by the summer of 2021.

“We determined in a short period of time that the program is needed and it is a positive influence and very much accepted,” Volk said.

So much so that the social worker has been requested by name through the Sycamore Police Department, Volk said.

“That tells you the program is working,” Volk said. “Because now they’re calling police, not because they want police to respond to call, but they know they can get help this way.”

The update comes after 24 local police officers locally across DeKalb County underwent a 40-hour state-certified Crisis Intervention Team training earlier this year.

Winters said the intent is to get every Sycamore officer through the class so police can better serve its citizens.

“The quicker we can connect people to professional resources, the better it is for everyone involved,” Winters said.

Winters said the idea of having social workers be more involved in police calls has become a popular topic of discussion across the country, with calls to replace police with social workers following the death of Minneapolis, Minnesota man George Floyd. Though police welcome the team approach and that kind of training to respond to those types of crises better, he said the idea of social workers completely replacing police concerns him.

“There has to be an initial assessment to make sure [the caller and responders] are safe,” Winters said. " … That’s more complicated in practicality than it is in theory.”

Volk said a lot of the police training is to provide safety and enforcing law but a lot of individuals who police respond to have other needs, such as better access to treatment for mental illness, substance abuse or solutions for homelessness. She said those types of issues lend itself to social workers’ aid with crisis intervention calls.

“So we’re able to link them to much needed services,” Volk said. “And the goal is to reduce amount of calls that police need to go out to for social service reasons.”

Countywide crisis response

Deanna Cada, executive director for the DeKalb County Mental Health Board, said she knows the interest is growing among police departments in the county.

Cada said the program through the Ben Gordon Center is partially funded by a grant through the board and is specifically designated for police department use. She said the board started funding for that grant in 2019 and it has dispensed between $35,000 and $40,000 so far for police department and social work collaboration.

Cada said the partnership with the center and local police departments was first made with DeKalb Police Department in 2020, but establishing programs to better address mental illness on police calls and in jails has been at the forefront of the board’s mind for much longer. The board began prioritizing this need back in 2017 after research came out showing there were more people in jail with mental illnesses than jails could deal with, Cada said – so much so that corrections officials for Cook County Jail once said they were the biggest mental health provider in the state.

“And that’s not the right place for them to be,” Cada said.

Cada said when she refers to jail inmates with mental illnesses, she means those who have been arrested because they were mentally ill and not of sound mind when they were arrested. She said she knew there were people in the DeKalb County Jail that had these issues and, if mental health services could be provided like a social worker would provide them, police agencies would have a way to respond to calls or follow up with somebody who isn’t inherently criminal but they’re not well mentally.

“It’s important to realize that these conversations are happening,” Cada said. “We are working with the community to improve services to really have a lot of different opportunities for people to get the mental health treatment they need.”

Winters said he believes merging the two disciplines helps achieve the common goal of giving callers the support they need and making sure police resources are used efficiently. He said those who have been connected with the mental health services they needed through the partnership is an anecdotal measure of the program’s success.

“I think that shows a small step, that we’ve had some little successes,” Winters said. “And we intend to build on that.”