Millvale Police social worker a great asset to department

While pursuing a social work degree, Alyssa Peters never expected to work in a police department. That is, until she completed a police social work internship during her final year of her master’s studies.

For the past two years, Peters, 26, has been reporting to emergency calls with the Millvale Police Department involving domestic abuse, substance abuse and mental health crises.

“What we get called in for can vary,” Peters said. “Any mental health crisis, a domestic, substance abuse, homelessness – stuff like that. I go in after the scene is cleared.”

Peters said that she isn’t a trained officer and when she assists with calls, police officers are in charge of clearing the scene. After the situation is calm and safe for everyone involved, she is able to offer her services.

“I’ll chat with whoever is interested in wanting to chat with me and from there, I’ll do a mental assessment,” she said. “I might bring along physical assessments if it’s relevant to the situation and then get information for clarity about what’s going on.”

She said that depending on the situation, the subject may go to a psychiatric hospital, a crisis shelter, or if the emergency isn’t immediate, Peters can work with them to get them long-term treatment.

“They might need anything as simple as financial support resources and food bank information, or they might need a therapist, psychiatrist or a case manager and I kind of triage them and get them where they need to go,” Peters said. “We hope those long-term resources help lessen recidivism and victimization.”

She thought back to a case where neighbors reported a young woman screaming inside her home. Peters was able to enter the home and calm down the woman, who was having a panic attack. She said that she and the officers worked in tandem because she knew how to safely calm the woman down, and the officers gathered the correct information to assess the situation.

Peters has also been able to help with domestic violence calls. She has laid out safety plans with victims and helped get them to shelters — and she has helped the perpetrators seek out mental health treatment.

“A lot of people say that the system’s broken, and in a sense it definitely is,” Peters said. “I think being in this role, I get that satisfaction of being like, ‘yes the system has broken areas, but I get to be a bridge and help navigate people through the system that would otherwise struggle and not know where to go or who to go to.’”

She said that one of the challenges of the position is the unpredictability of it. Social workers often have specialties within the profession, but when going with police on calls, she has to be ready for anything.

“With that, you have to be willing to admit when you don’t know something,” Peters said.

When she encounters this situation, she calls different resources and gets the appropriate information to pass along.

Police social work is a fairly new field, but is growing in popularity. Hampton, O’Hara, Sharpsburg and Ross all offer police social work internships in addition to Millvale. Peters completed her internship with Hampton Police and interviewed with Millvale for a full-time position.

Now, she’s guiding an intern. She said that they often shadow her during the day.

“Anything that I do, can do, will do, they do right along with me,” Peters said.

Millvale police Chief Tim Komoroski said that the department has offered a social work internship for four years and he is a huge advocate for social work in police departments.

“There is no negative,” Komoroski said. “There are only positives. The biggest misconception is that police social workers are here to take our jobs and that’s not the case. (Peters) never answers a call without us, and she waits to come on scene until we deem it safe.”

Komoroski said that Peters’ “toolbox is much more full” when it comes to getting victims and perpetrators the help they need after officers answer a call. He added that when it comes to dealing with addiction and mental health, without question she has more tools and resources. He said that Peters can have someone admitted to a bed in rehab in a day when it could take up to a month for police officers to do that for people.

“I have more tools in that area because I have schooling that the officers didn’t, but it also just helps us not to each have to wear so many hats,” Peters said. “I’m not a police officer and they’re not social workers. Us working together is what makes it work.”

“When we leave a call, we leave a lot of hurt behind,” Komoroski said. “We leave victims, victims children – we don’t know how to deal with that, (Peters) does. She steps in to get them what they need.”

Komoroski said that he remains an advocate for social work in police departments, even speaking at conventions in support of it. He said he sees it as an excuse when a department claims they can’t afford it. He said that Peters has quickly become a great help to the department and has fit in easily with the rest of the department.

“She’s fantastic,” he said. “She’s one of us. There’s no two ways about it.”