Social Workers in Solidarity Against Safe Policing for Safe Communities Executive Order

Please do not go through with this. It is disgusting and goes against ALL social work values. I will NOT renew my membership ever again if this goes through. END IT NOW!!!!!!!

Collaborating with or joining police departments keeps power and resources in the hands of police rather than community members. As a social worker I have no interest in collaborating or colluding with police departments. Defund the police. Fund schools, housing, and community programs.

Standing with the Executive order is standing compliantly with racist systems and asking for them to continue. The Executive order does not answers to our wants and needs as social workers with hopes for a safe and equitable country that prioritizes the needs of our most marginalized. It is time to stand with the DEFUNDING of the police industrial complex. The system as it is built does not and will not serve our nation.

Police have no place responding to mental health calls, with or without social workers. Further, the profession of social work needs to take a look at our own racist past and our complicity in perpetuating surveillance and oppression within Black and Brown communities. The NASW code of ethics calls for us to fight for social justice - we will accept nothing less.

I am so disappointed that the NASW is supporting this Executive Order. Social work is about justice and justice cannot be achieved until we dismantle and tear down the systems of oppression that have shaped our country.

I already have the horrible experience of supporting families in child welfare with a MANDATE that police be present. They are atrocious on the job and I have zero power to correct them or hold them accountable. It's a sick system to have police anywhere around humans who need support. I'm disgusted with NASW for a lack of hardline stance on BLM and defunding police. We will NOT be pawns.

✊

Social workers have a responsibility to dismantle systems of oppression. Real, structural changes are needed.

I co-sign this open letter to the NASW as well: https://medium.com/@alandettlaff/an-open-letter-to-nasw-and-allied-organizations-on-social-works-relationship-with-law-enforcement-1a1926c71b28

It’s our responsibility to uphold human dignity!

MSW student, elementary school sw, and patient advocate in Brooklyn here - for complete and total abolition of the police and nothing less!

NASW for police abolition NOW!

AZ LCSW

social workers should not be working with police- police need to be abolished! new systems need to be formed to actually help people & not profile them via policing!

This order goes against the NASW Code of Ethics and I will not support it nor participate in any action stemming from it

Social work positions should have mandated coverage offered by the employer for ongoing supervision as well.

White supremacy has no place in our field. Do better.

I recently graduated form my BSW. As a minority I have seen, felt, and been pushed out of systems. Racism is deeply embedded in our society and therefore we perpetuate long lasting discrimination. The deaths of recently black lives has been proof that we need to dismantle police brutality. Contemplating of what SW is in an institution where oppression and deaths are seen is not why I am continuing my masters in social work. As a professional, educated individual, and a social worker we need to pave the path. We should speak up now: Refusing to work alongside police brutality.

As social workers, we have a responsibility to challenge injustice in all forms and commit to anti-racist work. Police departments are racist to their core, and cannot be "reformed" out of white supremacy. Social workers need to be supporting community leaders and joining the fight of dismantling the system, not perpetuating systems of injustice.

We as social workers need to understand and dismantle our own ties to white supremacy and policing culture.