FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The Northwest Arkansas Council provided an update on the collaboration between Fayetteville and Springdale police departments and community health workers to provide better help in complex cases.
“The initiative centers around police calls for complex needs that require more than a law enforcement solution, such as mental health crises and homelessness,” according to the NWA Council.
In these cases, a social worker or community health worker might provide the assistance needed to prevent arrests when police officers are unprepared to handle certain situations. Instead, vulnerable citizens can be connected to vital assistance like housing, food, or healthcare.
The NWA Council says making this partnership possible took years of training. About three years ago, the Fayetteville Police Department and the University of Arkansas School of Social Work paired interns with officers for “crisis intervention calls.” Two years ago, FPD received a $250,000 grant from the Department of Justice to employ two full-time social workers to its staff as part of this initiative.
Springdale followed suit with a similar internship program. “Around half of the department’s officers bought into the program’s importance at the start,” said Capt. Derek Wright with Springdale Police. “A year later, support was essentially universal.”
Now, NWA Council and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and police in the region to continue expanding these efforts while also adding community health workers who can act as “connectors, translators and advocates to help patients from all backgrounds receive the care they need.”
In the same vein, NWA Council reports that the Fayetteville Public Library now hosts a community health worker three days a week. “People of all stripes and in all sorts of circumstances visit the library every day,” Executive Director David Johnson said. “Sometimes leading to disruptions and the intervention of law enforcement. So it was logical to play host to a community health worker who could help quickly and conveniently.
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