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New Pittsburgh office prepares to dispatch social workers to respond to scenes

PITTSBURGH — In the months ahead, a newly launched Pittsburgh office is expected to train and dispatch social workers to certain situations of crisis or distress.

Launched early this year, the Office of Community Health and Safety aims to “redirect city resources to better address community needs by housing social services, public health, and social work experts who can assist community members and first responders in situations that require longer-term support, harm reduction approaches, and other services.”

Channel 11 had the opportunity to sit down Friday with the new office’s manager, Laura Drogowski.

“This is not a program that’s created to in any way take away,” she said. “It’s to add. We recognize that there are roles for everyone in the current public safety continuum, but there are a lot of situations where we need more, we need different, or more appropriate.”

Each year, thousands upon thousands of 911 calls are made in Pittsburgh. Firefighters respond to fires or water main breaks, paramedics respond to medical calls. And then police, in most cases, respond to everything in between.

“They will acknowledge they’re not always the right responders for those calls, particularly when those calls involve social service needs, issues around eviction,” Drogowski said. “This is not what we want police to do, and this is not what police want to do. We’ve known that for a long time.”

In the coming days, the office is looking to hire a number of social workers, who can instead respond to particular scenarios and offer long-term help.

“When someone is in a mental health crisis when someone is sleeping on a bench and might face a charge like defiant criminal trespassing, we don’t believe that’s a situation where someone should be facing criminal, legal involvement,” Drogowski said. “What is going to jail going to do to change that person’s outcome? What are the ways we support those individuals that are in those situations with services, rather than with continued criminal legal ramifications.”

She said ensuring responding workers are safe, however, is key, and top of mind as they are in the midst of developing office policies and procedures.

“Whatever we do, we don’t believe in putting social workers in bulletproof vests,” she said. The idea is not to militarize social workers, and not to need to do so.

The office has already seen success in assisting people in need, through partnerships with Allegheny Health Network, and through calls within their very own building.

“We’ve had three individuals in the City-County building that have experienced some sort of crisis and we were actually able to connect them with resources and prevent them from incarceration,” said Alexandra Abboud, Social Work Manager.

Abboud will eventually lead the incoming social workers as they employ those strategies throughout the community.

“They’ll be able to meet that person, at that moment in that crisis and walk them through the process,” Abboud said. “And not just an on-scene brochure hand-off, it’s not ‘here you go, call this number,’ it’s ‘we’re starting a relationship, I’m going to call you tomorrow, and then I’ll check in with you in a few days and make sure we’re making steps toward those referrals and those things that we need to get done to support you through this.”

The desire for this type of social work was recently expressed by neighbors in Bloomfield, where this week, police officers tased a suspected bicycle thief who later died. The Office of Community Health and Safety can’t comment on that situation, and Allegheny County Police are looking into what happened.

That investigation comes as, nationwide, some have pointed to other arrest-related deaths, calling to defund or even dismantle the police.

The Office of Community Health and Safety, rather, is aiming to work in tandem with officers and public safety.

“When you call 911, there’s an expectation in the community that someone will show up and help. We haven’t historically had someone other than those three traditional responders of fire, police, EMS,” said Drogowski. “That’s not fair to our community and that’s not fair to our first responders.”

It’s possible social workers could be sent out on scenes by the end of this year.

The office hopes to offer services that serve to prevent crisis situations as well, including in areas of public health. For instance, they’re looking to provide floatation devices to area pools, and even perhaps facilitate swim lessons.

Anyone interested in applying for the office’s open positions can find out more here.