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

Social workers are not the bandaid solution to an institution rooted in white supremacy. We need to actively be working and thinking critically about how to upend these systems and create new and equitable ones rooted in liberation and racial equality. I don’t support this executive order.

Social workers are not called to be complicit in the systems of oppression, but to dismantle the barriers and stand with the most marginalized people groups. Defund the police, the money ought to go back into communities that have been over-policed and under-funded.

Social workers should be standing with the asks of the Black community. Not saying Black Lives Matter, BUT.....!

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I am a social work student and I cannot stand by this executive order. The suggestion that we should work alongside the very institution that has actively decimated the communities we claim to serve is appalling. The reality is that many communities are crying out for the defunding, or at the very least - REAL change, of our current policing system. The complicity of NASW in the midst of these pleas is not okay. Our Code of Ethics and profession’s mission surround fighting social injustices and doing what is not only best for our clients but systems as a whole; this advocacy agenda puts us in a position in which we can no longer abide by that. We need to be better!

Supporting this executive order will only expand police budgets and incentives that harm black and brown communities.

As a social worker, I cannot support this executive order, it goes against our code of ethics to join forces with a broken system that clearly does harm. Law enforcement needs to be defunded and rethought.

There should be more conversation with social workers before making a public statement in support of the Executive Order.

As a social worker, I do not support this bill. Police does not need REFORM it needs to be DEFUNDED.

Social workers are not bandaids to be used to cure the disease of white supremacy in police departments. Racism still permeates through the social work profession, so using them will not help the deeper issues.

This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. We cannot, as social workers, ignore our call to promote social justice. By aiding to the police instead of working to defund and change a broken system, the NASW is choosing to not address systemic racism and our part in changing it.

Safe Policing for Safe Communities is in direct conflict of our Code of Ethics.

I'm a social worker in Boston, MA and I support this petition as being embedded in the police system would go against the NASW values I follow.

Defund the police!

I am a social worker. I do not and will not stand for the profession to continue to root itself in white supremacy, all while not even addressing its connections to white supremacy. We MUST dismantle white supremacy! We MUST not be a band aid to a continuous system of injustice! Abolish the police!

I firmly disagree with the use of Social Workers in replace of effective policing.

Social work was a profession born out of community surveillance and assimilation. We cannot continue to uphold white supremacy and remain true to our ethics. No social workers in police departments!

“ Social workers challenge social injustice. Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers' social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment,discrimination, and other forms of social injustice. These activities seek to promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers strive to ensure access to needed information, services, and resources; equality of opportunity; and meaningful participation in decision making for all people.”

Train the police officers better. They need to know about mental health and substance abuse issues like we do in grad school.

Safe Policing is an oxymoron! Social workers can be engaged to respond to crises without answering to and working for the police!