COON RAPIDS, Minn. — Increasingly more police departments are adding mental health services in at least some capacity. In Coon Rapids, police have hired a full-time social worker for the first time.
Capt. Tanya Harmoning has worked for the Coon Rapids Police Department for more than two decades. She says, before getting a full-time social worker, the department launched a pilot program, hiring a part-time social worker who also worked for the Blaine Police Department.
Harmoning says the goal was to eventually put a full-time social worker on the payroll, whether that was by expanding the part timer's hours or hiring someone new.
"We need someone here full time," Harmoning said. "Part time's just not, it's just not enough."
With increasing calls for mental health-related help, city council agreed a full-time employee was needed. Now, Lori Halbur is the department's first and only full-time social worker. She started in December 2022, replacing the part-time social worker position.
"Coming from Catholic Charities, I worked with, you know, like 100 social workers," Halbur said. "I spent a lot of months here learning, like, what all the acronyms are … The first few days I'm just like, 'There's a gun. Oh my gosh, there's a gun. There's guns everywhere!'"
Now that she's a little over a year on the job, Halbur plans to host a community meet-and-greet for the first time. The free drop-in session is meant to connect neighbors with resources in areas of mental health, substance use, food or housing insecurity, job insecurity, children or parenting and older adults or aging. Halbur says she already does this in her daily work.
"I'm not here for the officers, they have their own people," she said. "More often is, I have a radio and then I also have a cell phone, and I'll either get a call on one of those saying, 'Hey, do you see what call I'm on right now? Can you come out?'"
"I blow in in my, you know, in my softer clothes. Not in a uniform, and just offer a different perspective or a different way of saying it to get somebody where they need to be … and these officers are so protective of me. They would never put me in an unsafe situation … I'll just barge in and go straight to the individual and start talking and I'll see officers like moving a knife over and I'm like, 'Oh, didn't even see that.'"
Halbur's specialty is following up with people and any hospitals or facilities involved, and Harmoning says that isn't something police officers normally don't do.
"As well trained as we are in law enforcement, we just don't always have that time," she said. "Every police department should have [a social worker]. I think it's invaluable, and there's no way to quantify the impact that that position is going to have."
It's possible Coon Rapids will secure another social worker in the future, Harmoning said.
In the meantime, community is invited to meet Halbur this Thursday, Feb. 22 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Anoka County Library Crooked Lake Branch at 11440 Crooked Lake Rd NW in Coon Rapids. The police department plans to host more sessions with her every fourth Thursday of the month for at least the next few months.
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