NYC To Send In Social Workers Rather Than Cops On Mental Health Calls – IOTW Report

NYC To Send In Social Workers Rather Than Cops On Mental Health Calls

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NYPD officers will stay out of many mental health crisis calls and social workers will respond instead in parts of northern Manhattan starting this spring.

The head of the city’s wide-ranging mental health initiative gave some details of the test program to lawmakers Monday, fleshing out a plan the city outlined broadly in November.

The test program will begin in three Harlem and East Harlem police precincts that together accounted for over 7,400 mental health-related 911 calls last year. Still, some important specifics remain to be seen in practice.

Mental health advocates have hailed the idea but expressed some reservations about how the city is structuring it. Link

37 Comments on NYC To Send In Social Workers Rather Than Cops On Mental Health Calls

  1. Good way to thin the numbers of social workers.

    Must be part of the Depopulation agenda and eating test tube grown meat.

    They can also use up some of those extra COVID body bags no one needed.

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  2. I have a BA in Social Work EWU 1980. I’m glad that I never became a social worker, I found out early on that I wasn’t screwed up enough or have come from a dysfunctional family to have a been a good social worker. Besides I hate political correctness and would’ve bucked the system and found myself out of a job because I wouldn’t conform to their malarkey and bs. I am thankful that I have had an honest living raising a good family of 3 children, all who are doing well and now 4 and possibly a 5th grandchild later this year.

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  3. Aren’t social workers actually part of the problem?
    They’re a impotent cog in a imperfect system.

    Isn’t a degree in social work really just a bullshit degree for most who doesn’t know what to do with their lives… seriously… really… i mean it…

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  4. I wonder if social workers have a union, yet? They sure aren’t paid enough to take these kinds of risk.

    I guess sending in psychiatrist would get too expense and no crazy person would waste their time talking to a psychologist. So it’s either the cops or the social workers.

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  5. …my Fire Department once got a mental health call that proved to be a guy who set his own house on fire, moved to a window upstairs away from the flames, and settled down with a rifle to take potshots at the first responding Lieutenant because, crazy.

    …send a social worker to THAT…

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  6. …of course, the catch here is that crazy people don’t always TELL you they’re crazy, so, since anyone waving a gun or knife around is “acting crazy”, send the social worker to ALL those calls ALONE, since SOMEONE’S gotta be the canary in the mineshaft…

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  7. Did some psych visits in home health. Got chased very slowly down the hall by a patient waving pinking shears at me pulling herself along in her wheelchair with her feet. She’s screaming COME BACK IM NOT DONE WITH YOU…

    Actually I think we ARE done here.

    My new hire trainee asked me to take him back to the office, he resigned immediately.

    One of my coworkers got thrown in a basement and locked down there for 8 hours by another home health patient NOT designated as psych in our records. Rescued by a neighbor. The company tried to blame her for not taking appropriate precautions. Um, you didnt warn me he’s psych…

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  8. …a family friend got a social work degree, did that for awhile, then got her mortuary license and started prepping corpses for funerals instead.

    She said the corpses were more cooperative, even the 300 pound one she got trapped under when she rolled him, and more rewarding to work with, too…

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  9. So how will this work? Will they set the timer and after 50 minutes, close the session and make an appointment for the same time next week? This is going to be great. How do I get a popcorn concession in NYC?

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  10. Anonymous
    FEBRUARY 23, 2021 AT 6:14 PM
    “What will happen is that moronic psychos will be dialing 911 just to have someone show up to talk to.”

    ..we had some older folks that would call for an ambulance with imaginary symptoms they couldn’t even remember just to get someone to visit them to talk to.

    More sad than psycho.

    …tried to be gentle about it, they were just very, very lonely, but we did have to deal with actual emergencies. They didn’t usually want to talk to social workers, though, apparently that came with both a stigma and a level of insincerity that even the lonely couldn’t stomach.

    It was kind of a Munchausen’s thing, just not involving physical damage.

    …but their spirits seemed pretty broken…

    ..not everyone who needs mental health support is a raving lunatic.

    Some are just alone in the world.

    You should pray for them.

    …and pray it doesn’t happen to you…

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  11. Doc
    FEBRUARY 23, 2021 AT 7:43 PM
    “In that case ALL social workers assigned to that detail should be P.O.S.T. certified with Firearms training!”

    …so, cops, then?

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