MAP CHAPLAIN’S CORNER

Happy Summer! My thoughts turn to a topic very much in today’s news the use of Social Services being included in First Responders. To start, I do not believe social workers should be first into domestic situations. I do believe they should have a role in the policing of these situations. One of my granddaughters was in town to visit and related how she had just had her first ride along with a local department. She is a newly minted social worker in an agency that handles social interventions for a number of local law enforcement departments. Coming from a family whose dad is a retired police officer, an uncle in policing and I am in Police Chaplaincy so she brings lots of stories from our family into her career. She told us how she showed up to roll call with mandatory dozens of donuts and related her family background in policing. So off she went on a day shift ride for what she thought would be a quiet ho hum shift. We know how that goes and yes very shortly they encountered a violent domestic call. “You stay in the car” was her first instruction as the officer entered the home and she sat and wondering what was going on inside the residence. Before long, out comes the officer and the hand cuffed suspect who is continuing protesting his arrest. Off to the jail for the processing and when finished she had the time with the officer to discuss the circumstances and offer what her agency could offer to the household after the incident. So this three year veteran of social services