b'Building a Community of TrustMaplewoods social workers provide individualized crisis care to their neighbors.BY LELA MOOREL to R: Maplewood health officer Candice Davenport, Maplewood crisis intervention social workers Dina Pressel and Marthe Eustache.A fter the police killing ofThis year they added Dina Pressel, who works part- policeutilized by the township. The Community GeorgeFloydinMayBoard on Police did not want a social work-2020,thequestionofer embedded with the police department; howlawenforcementintheco-responsesystem,Eustacheand could better respond toPressel are dispatched from Town Hall, but crisis situations becamerespond to calls at the behest of the police. a political hot button.We have a great relationship with the Incorporatingsocialworkersintocrisisresponse,time. Pressels position is funded by settlement fundsdepartment, Eustache says. With the rela-it was said, could help build trust in communitiesfrom the State of New Jersey that are intended totionships weve formed, they know that they can rely wheresuspicionofthepoliceoftenoverrodeanyhelp municipalities combat opioid abuse.on me, and I know I can rely on them. She praises sense of security, and reduce the likelihood that anBothEustacheandPresselareemployedbythe trust she has gained within the department. encounter with an individual in crisis would resultMaplewoods Department of Health, and neither isMy philosophy, says Sally, is that if theres a in the use of police force.under police oversight. They do collaborate closelyperson who can handle [a crisis situation], I dont Maplewood talked the talk, and then walked thewiththeMaplewoodPoliceDepartmentandthemind handing off to them. walk.South Essex Fire Department. They have an office atIn her first year on the job, Dafis said, Eustache After studying the issue in the fall of 2020, theTown Hall, but spend time at the police headquar- was able to divert over 150 cases away from law en-TownshipCommitteeinDecemberunanimouslyters on Springfield Avenue. As Albert Sally, Maple- forcement engagement. With the addition of Pres-approved hiring a crisis intervention social worker.woods chief of police explains, the department hassel, he says, we can do more. The idea, said Mayor Dean Dafis, who was one ofpower Wednesdays in which nearly every officerWhen a call comes in that police feel warrants a the committee members leading the 2020 effort, wason the force is working one of three shifts. The socialsocial workers presence, police arrive at the scene first that certain community vulnerabilities were betterworker can meet with all the lineups on Wednesdaysto secure it. The police officers and SEFD are con-suitedforinterventionbysocialservicessupportand participate in trainings with them.tinuously assessing the situation for safetysome-rather than law enforcement response. CandiceDavenport,Maplewoodshealthoffi- thing I count on and truly appreciate, Pressel says. In April of last year, the committee hired Marthecer, says the Community Board on Police was in- Then, Eustache or Pressel (one of whom is on duty Eustache as its first crisis intervention social worker.strumental in implementing the co-response systemat all times) will arrive to assess the crisis. Sally says 32/ matters magazine / fall 2023'