Ross Township hires social services coordinator to work with police

When Cristyn Zett was hired as Ross Township’s new police chief in January, she was asked if she would be open to having social workers assist police officers. She said she was and when the chance to bring in a social worker became a possibility, she didn’t hesitate.

The township was awarded a grant to fund the position and on July 17, Ross commissioners hired Jordan Sager as the township’s social services coordinator. His job is to provide comprehensive social services to individuals identified by the police department and residents in Ross. These services include crisis support/intervention, short term counseling, case management, advocacy and community outreach.

Sager started doing ride alongs with police officers during the second half of July.

“I’m extremely excited,” Sager said. “I know that Ross is (one of the few) police departments in Allegheny County to get a social worker. I’m excited to serve the residents of Ross. It’s a new program and something we can build upon and hopefully expand in the future.”

Zett said Ross recognized that while officers handle a lot of crisis situations, they have a limited amount of time and a limited number of tools to fully deal with those situations.

“It starts with the desire to take some of these incidents and issues with our residents and provide some additional care, somebody who can walk them through the system,” she said.

Zett said it can be as simple as finding a rehabilitation center, connecting people to counseling, or finding people to help clean out a house in a hoarding situation.

“Where normally an officer would come and handle somewhat of a crisis in five minutes and maybe look around and think ‘these kids don’t have enough food’ or maybe an elderly resident isn’t being cared for appropriately, but it’s not a criminal matter, so they handle whatever is in front of them then they leave,” Zett said.

Sager said there are a variety of ways he can help.

“I can accompany and assist officers on scene during a crisis once it is safe to do so. When the officers have deescalated the situation, I can come in and lend my expertise in areas such as mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence,” Sager said. “We can help train (police) in suicide prevention, child abuse awareness and things like that through the department.”

And the social worker can also provide support to stressed out police officers.

“They have all the same stressors that everybody else has,” Zett said. “They have families, they have kids, parents, siblings and then on top that you’re in a challenging profession that does not have normal schedules, does not have normal demands. They respond to fatal fires, to terrible car accidents, to people who are not taking care of their children or each other, to all of the things that people do to each other that is ugly and violent and sad. And those are the things that they see all the time, day in and day out.”

Zett said police officers struggle finding ways to wind down.

“I have noticed a shift in focus since I started policing 23 years ago,” she said. “In the last decade we have realized we really need to take care of our first responders. They see the violence and the neglect and the addiction struggles. They can’t always help and it takes a toll on them emotionally. And as a society I think we’ve realized that we need to take better care of the people in these roles.”

Sager said helping officers deal with stress begins with listening.

“When they come to me I can get a better sense of how (stress) is impacting their daily function and, if it is, I can talk to them about that and I can also refer them to appropriate resources as well,” he said. “It’s important to identify those stressors early so that they can help mitigate them in the early stages so that they don’t pile up and become something greater in the future. Identifying the signs of being stressed out, of being burnt out, if they recognize those symptoms early, they can get those taken care of.”