Staffing Remains A Challenge For Everett Police Embedded Social Worker Program

Two years ago Everett began embedding a social worker within the police department to help officers better provide services to people living on the street. That first position was funded by Snohomish County and filled by Lauren Rainbow who left the Everett position after just nine months to work for Snohomish County.

In June of last year Everett Police hired Kaitlyn Dowd as their first of two social workers assigned to the city’s new COET team that consists of an Everett Police Sergeant, four officers, two social workers and a city prosecutor. Two months later a second social worker, Staci McCole, was hired.

MyEverettNews.com recenty learned that McCole has been gone from the department for some time leaving just Dowd as the lone social worker on the team. Also while the team has filled two police officer positions there are still two police officer positions vacant. MyEverett News.com sent Everett Police the following questions and received the following responses from Everett Police Chief Dan Templeman regarding the status of the Community Outreach and Enforcement Team (COET).

Q1: How long has the social worker position been vacant?

A1: The position has been vacant for about 6 weeks.

Q2: How long had the person in the position been employed in that capacity with EPD?

A2: The social worker had been with the team for almost 10 months.

Q3: Why did this person leave?

A3: For personal reasons, the social worker resigned her position.

Q4: How long will the position be vacant before it is filled again?

A4: We are interviewing candidates this week to fill the vacancy. Once a selection has been made, the background process will commence and we will fill the position as soon as possible.

Q5: Trust is a big issue in these positions as the people deal with this fragile population. Are there concerns over high turnover in the social worker positions?

A5: Earning trust is important when working with this population. While Lauren Rainbow was originally assigned to Everett as part of a pilot program, she has always been employed by Snohomish County Human Services, and continues working with the same population through her assignment there, as does our existing social worker, K. Dowd. We were pleased to receive 31 applications for the vacant position and have narrowed that list down to 14, who will be invited to participate in interviews within the next two weeks. We are confident we will find a high caliber social worker out of this pool.

Q6: What is the current staffing as of today for the COET team. How many sergeants, officers, social workers and prosecutors are assigned to the team today and what is the police department projection for full staffing of this team?

A6: Funding for COET was approved in January of 2016, and starting up any new unit takes time. COET is currently comprised of 1 Sgt, 2 uniformed officers, 1 civilian social worker, and an assigned prosecutor. Fully staffing this unit remains a priority, and as we hire more officers, we will continue to add staffing to this unit until we reach our full complement of 4 uniformed officers.

But it should be noted that, even at less than full staffing, the productivity of those currently assigned has been quite impressive. In June alone, the team made contact with 122 individuals, which included contact with 75 new subjects. Additionally, in just the past two weeks, our team placed three more individuals into out-of-state treatment at no cost to Everett taxpayers, bringing the total number of PAARI placements to 19 since we started our participation in the program.

You can learn more about Everett’s Community Outreach and Enforcement team here on the city’s website.