Two years after hiring, OPD’s social worker is changing the department’s approach to policing

Every Monday when Ashlea Sleiman arrives at her office, she’s greeted with referrals.

Sleiman, the first ever social services liaison for the Oxford Police Department (OPD), said one of her first tasks when she joined the department two years ago was to create a basic form for officers to fill out when they thought her services might be needed.

“I will sit and go through my referrals, figure out what is most urgent, figure out where I need to start connecting people,” Sleiman said. “And then I’ll start making some calls.”

Those referrals are just a small part of how Sleiman, a former social worker in the child welfare field in Chicago, built the position from scratch, gradually changing OPD’s approach to policing in the process.

National protests in 2020 inform new efforts in policing

Sleiman was hired in August of 2022, but discussions about how OPD could implement a social worker date back to the summer of 2020. That year, protests following the death of George Floyd erupted across the country. Derek Chauvin., the Minneapolis police officer who kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes until Floyd died, was found guilty of second-degree murder and civil rights violations.

Floyd’s murder in May led to a summer full of protests and calls for police reform, including calls to defund the police. In Oxford, many residents spoke out against racial discrimination and over-policing at city council meetings, and a vigil for Floyd was held on June 8 of that year.

Oxford’s Police Community Relations and Review Commission (PCRRC), formed in 2015, helped make recommendations for the city to reform its own policing measures. After considering alternatives to traditional policing, the PCRRC formally recommended that the department hire a social worker in 2021, and the position was added to the city’s 2022 budget.

Part of the two-year process between discussions about a social work position and actually hiring Sleiman came down to research, said OPD Chief John Jones. The department looked at similar positions in Northern Kentucky and other municipalities, meeting with social workers and community outreach specialists from other police departments to determine what might work.

Ultimately, OPD settled on a position where the social worker doesn’t respond to calls independently. Instead, Sleiman will help with calls if needed and primarily focuses on following up with individuals to get them connected to other social service agencies throughout the county.

“The police social worker position here, what we call our social services liaison, may not be what everyone envisioned,” Jones said. “I would not call it necessarily a co-responder model.”

Liaison focuses on connecting clients to resources

When it came time to hire someone for the position in 2022, Jones said he was surprised by the volume of applications from a variety of different backgrounds. With 17 years of experience in child welfare in Chicago, including supervisory experience, Sleiman rose to the top of the list. Jones said the decision was in part because she had the experience to define the new role.

For the first year on the job, Sleiman said she focused on connecting with various social service organizations in Oxford and Butler County and learning the dynamics of the community. At the same time, she was finding her niche within the department and making sure officers knew how to rely on her.

“I think that’s very important to be able to put a face to a name,” Sleiman said. “I did that with a lot of different people [in the first year].”

In 2023, Sleiman made 162 referrals for more than 100 individuals. There’s no typical week for Sleiman, and she said she has to be prepared for calls from agencies or officers to come in at any time. While she never goes on calls alone, she said officers will often ask her to join them after they make an initial run to a call and determine that it’s safe.

Jones said one of the benefits of the social services liaison position is reducing repeat calls from residents who may be facing long-term struggles with mental health, housing insecurity or other issues. Now that officers have gotten used to having Sleiman on the team, Jones said there’s less frustration going into repeat calls because they know they have a resource to direct people to.

“Now, we know that there is someone designed so that we can follow up with this person and can try to get them help, so that reduces our call volume,” Jones said. “We’ve seen those successes. Certainly there are individuals who continue to be frequent fliers … but there are also those success stories that she has helped.”

Sleiman recalled one client she connected with early on who she’s still in touch with today. The man suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was not on medication, Sleiman said. She helped to get him hospitalized, and when he was out of the hospital Sleiman got him a pillbox and helped to organize his medication, which had been a major barrier for him. Later, Sleiman convinced him to go to Serve City in Hamilton, where he ended up in their transitional housing program.

“He’s currently looking for permanent housing, and they will assist with deposits and stuff like that,” Sleiman said. “He’s doing well. I still communicate, even though he’s not here anymore. I still hear from him occasionally just giving me the heads up on how he’s doing.”

That level of follow-up is important to Sleiman to ensure that people are getting connected to the right resources and not being forgotten about until they need OPD’s assistance again.

Help for both the community and officers

Sabrina Jewell is the outreach and marketing coordinator at Oxford Seniors. In her role, she spends a lot of time connecting older adults to community resources like social services and financial assistance.

Since joining Oxford Seniors in 2008, Jewell said she’s had to maintain a relationship with OPD. Now that the department has a dedicated social worker, Jewell said she talks to Sleiman regularly and works together to ensure that older adults are getting the resources they need.

“It has been kind of dovetailing the work I do and the work they do and … other services,” Jewell said. “They can go out to the house … they can go out and do a wellness check.”

Some seniors in the community struggle with mental health, while others may not be eating properly due to lack of access or lack of a hunger drive, Jewell said. Having a full network of social services that involves the police department has helped with case management, Jewell said.

It’s not just the community members making calls that could benefit from having Sleiman around. Jones said she’s become an important resource for OPD staff to talk to about their own mental health struggles to ensure that they’re getting the help they need.

While police officers may face a stigma around asking for help as a male-dominated field, Sleiman said she makes sure all the OPD officers have her number and know that she’s available.

“Officers know if they need something, they can seek me out and talk with me,” Sleiman said.

While Jones said some officers were initially skeptical of adding a social worker position to the team and may have preferred to see another officer added to address their workload, now the department better understands the way her role impacts them.

“I think we’ll see her position evolve as well, and grow,” Jones said. “She’s doing a great job … Now many see the benefits of having her in the department. If we were to eliminate that position, there would definitely be a void.”

Jones said there are no intentions right now of adding an additional social worker position to the OPD staff. If that became necessary in the future, he said it would go to city council for a vote first.