For three months, Morgan Kobitka has been the Portage Police Department’s first social worker. Police Chief Michael Candiano is already convinced the experiment is a success.
“We kind of came into this with a blank slate,” he said.
During the interviews for the position, candidates would ask about the police administration’s expectations. They didn’t really know what to expect, he said. They just knew a social worker was needed.
“We’re changing the way we do things by bringing somebody in,” Candiano said. “It’s ultimately going to reduce the call volume and reduce those repeat issues.”
Police officers in Portage just don’t have time to follow up following a call, as much as they’d like to. It’s a busy department. In September, there were 2,781 calls, about 93 a day, Candiano said. He’s guessing the 2025 total will be 32,000 to 33,000. “95 to 100 calls a day, that’s a decent amount of calls,” he said.
It’s one thing for officers to hand a piece of paper with information to a person during the crisis and another to make sure they understand the resources available to them.
“We find that we’re going to the same homes over and over again,” Candiano said. With a social worker now on staff, there’s someone available to follow up and help address mental health, domestic violence and other issues. Kobitka can check with victims to see whether they feel safe returning to the home and make sure they have access to the resources they need.
Kobitka said much of her first months on the police force have been involved with setting up the program, building relationships and creating a resource hub that just launched.
There’s a wealth of resources available in the region, everything from crisis lines to detox to equine therapy to grief counseling to autism resources and more.
For Kobitka, every day is different. “Having expectations for anything in social work, things are too fluid,” she said.
Kobitka begins by doing what amounts to triage, checking messages and police reports to see what might need to be dealt with that day. Some days are full of meetings. She serves on a lot of committees across the county. “I’m constantly forging relationships,” she said.
And then there are days like Friday, when she was helping connect a homeless person to vital resources like food, shelter and clothing. Even with homeless people, needs differ. Some need clothing, some don’t. Other needs vary. She carried enough food in her car to help a person get through the weekend.
For police officers, a homeless person can be the subject of several calls a week. That’s the value of having a social worker on hand to deal with systemic issues, Candiano said.
She’s available to help police officers, too. Officers deal with about 100 times more trauma than the average person will deal with in a lifetime. That takes a toll. Kobitka can connect officers with the resources they need, too.
Portage isn’t the first police department in Porter County to have a social worker. Candiano got the idea from Porter County Sheriff Jeff Balon, who hired a social worker when he was Valparaiso’s police chief and now has one for the sheriff’s department.
Getting the idea was quick. Getting funding to implement it took a lot longer.
Former Mayor Sue Lynch and current Mayor Austin Bonta have both been very supportive, Candiano said, but it took the proceeds from an opioid lawsuit settlement to provide the funding for the position.
At some point, the opioid money will run out. Candiano hopes to be able to continue having a social worker on the payroll, and maybe even more than one.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.