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

Please listen to your members and the constituents they serve!

I was called to social work to love, care for, and uplift our communities, not to further police them.

Defund the police and reallocate those funds to communities that need it most

Despite the way NASW has promoted it thus far, it is clear that many, including myself, do not stand with Trump and his recent executive policy. Social work is not a “fix” to a broken policing system or a “pawn” to be used politically. Especially when the social work profession has problems of its own that we are not addressing. The reforms presented in this executive order are not what is being demanded by the Black community in regard to policing changes and recognition of injustice, and in fact, go against them.

Adding additional social workers into an already broken system does nothing to fix it. We need to build the resources to support our community so that social workers and other community members have resources to connect those in need.

I have had to physically protect my clients from violence at the hands of the NYPD... Never will I join with them.

Not in our name

The executive order is not reflective of the NASW code of ethics nor is it an adequate response to systemic racism.

Black organizers are not calling for social workers to work side by side with cops, they are calling for the defunding of police departments. If the NASW wants to work to be allies to the movement, at the very very least we need to analyze how social work as a profession is complicit in white supremacist culture and then follow the lead of black-led community organizing efforts to build up new systems of peer support to address community well-being and mental health. This is a long term project and the NASW needs to buckle in for the ride to ensure that it is not perpetuating harm, which the NY branch and the CEO recently did with their op-eds about working with police.

As a student at SBU in Long Island, I want to enter a work force that is equal and just. I want to use my platform I am creating to enact change. That’s why I sign this petition.

This is a bandaid reform to a system that needs total overhaul and social workers should not lend it credibility.

Defund the police! We need a new system, it is too corrupt to just incorporate social workers as a bandaid

Let’s not be another cog in the wheel for systematic racism.

6 years ago Featured

As a black person and BSW holder working in my community , I’m appalled and disappointed in this stance made by the NASW. I signed because i want to see police departments across our nation defunded, not reformed. We keep our communities safe.

I became a social worker to question and dismantle systems of oppression NOT to uphold them.

Defund the police and reallocate those funds to our communities and the programs that social workers support.

Black lives matter.

Safe policing is a myth. We refuse to be a part of this. It violates our core ethics as a profession and must be stood against.

Social work should be a part of the solution, instead of contributing to the problem

There is no such things as safe policing and social workers should stand on the side of health NOT enforcement. Standing next to safe policing is protecting the harmful history of social work that has separated Black families for generations. The NASW must disrupt this pattern and step back from pushing a false narrative that policing can be safe for Black people.