Funding will go towards several areas identified as needing additional support including prevention, mental health training courses, facilitating support for parents and coordinating mental health initiatives.

Ayers said collaboration between police and social workers risks perpetuating the systemic racism she has seen in the social work field. "Putting social workers in to heal all the wounds as a Band-Aid is just going to blow up in everyone's face," she said. Social workers contribute to the criminalization and mass incarceration of people of color, said Julia Lyon, a Pennsylvania social worker and member of Social Service Workers United. “Otherwise, social workers are just going to be police without guns.”But advocates of collaboration between social workers and police point to how ingrained law enforcement is into American society as evidence of the need for acting within that framework. AdInstead of perpetuating what they see as punishment-based approaches, opponents of police and social workers recommend more investment in community-based intervention.

I was a stay-at-home mom for the most part.All across Metro Detroit, in the unsettling, hectic days of the onset of COVID-19, social workers encountered similar opportunities and seized them, The Detroit News reported. The social work background is really helpful to try to understand a predicament in a specific social context, said Emily Fagre, a social worker for Michigan Medicine at University Hospital in Ann Arbor. But as social workers, their training is to make life bearable for those in need. There was lots of coordination that goes on with that.Coordination came at a premium, especially early on, social workers say. Audrey Houttekier, a social work manager for Michigan Medicine, said that while disaster mental health is something in which social workers are widely trained, not all workers have the same abilities or preparation.