Golden Valley PD’s Embedded Social Worker Puts Unique Experience To Work
Down the hall from Katherine Moreno’s office inside the Golden Valley Police Department, a collage of different patches from law enforcement agencies around the world is titled “Blessed be the peacemakers.”
Hennepin County Police-Embedded Social Worker Katherine Moreno inside her office at the Golden Valley Police Department.
The former 911 operator and, for the last six months, a Hennepin County police-embedded social workers, knows public safety is often the first response to larger crises in someone’s life.
“When officers respond to these calls that aren’t crime-related, they see a need, and that’s when I come in,” said Moreno. “When they are done with the call, they send a referral to me, and it’s my job to follow-up with them after and see how things are going and then provide them with those services or resources they might need.”
Hennepin County provides 45 social workers across 44 agencies.
“If I come up on a dilemma, and I don’t know how to help a client, I have a great team behind me,” she said. “I have a great team that I can explain the situation and they are more than happy to guide me.”
While she was a 911 operator for six years, Moreno realized that the need was there to reach more people where they are.
“Once that initial call for help to 911, to police, to the fire department, is made, you know, often times that’s where it stops,” Moreno said. “But then here I come to say, ‘Hey, it’s okay. You don’t necessarily have to ask for help, because I am here asking you if you need help and if you want help.’ So i think it kind of takes that pride piece down a little bit.”
And in a department that is building back its ranks and even recently swore in its first Somali-American officer, Moreno knows her role is keeping pace with the changes.
“I think it’s an ever-growing position. The officers that are here, they know: ‘Kat’s here, let’s send her that referral,'” she said. “But there are other times during roll call where they might bring up a call that they responded to the night before, and they didn’t think to send me the referral on that, and that’s where I can go to roll call and say: ‘Hey I can follow up on that.'”
