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UC Social Work/Cincinnati Police Partnership Assists Families Devastated by Death

Photos By: Lisa Ventre and Ashley Kempher

   “They say all of the homicide investigations are horrible, but that the cases involving a child are the hardest.” – Monica Middleton, a UC master’s student in Social Work, describing conversations with Cincinnati Police homicide investigators.

A three-year partnership between the University of Cincinnati School of Social Work and the Cincinnati Police Homicide Unit is building support and understanding in situations where families are rocked by the emotions and circumstances surrounding a sudden death such as a homicide, and police must stay focused on the investigations. The Victims Assistance Liaison Unit (VALU), an idea first proposed by Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas H. Streicher, Jr.,  is providing support services for the families as UC social work students act to help families in ways the police investigators on the cases can not.

UC Social Work Students Karen Rumsey, left, and Monica Middleton

Supported by grants from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office of State Victims Assistance Act funds, the VALU staff is represented by coordinator and UC alumna Cheryl Cook, the victims’ assistance practitioner, along with two UC Social Work master’s students, Monica Middleton of Hebron, Ky., and Karen Rumsey of Western Hills. Middleton and Rumsey have worked with the program since last January, earning field placement UC credit-hours while gaining experience in their profession. The grant pays for the position of the advocacy practitioner, phones and computers in the VALU office that is located in the Cincinnati Police Homicide Unit.

Cincinnati Police Sergeant Gary Conner, Homicide Unit, says these victims’ advocacy programs are rare nationally and indispensable here in Cincinnati. That’s why Cincinnati Police first approached Susan Carlson – field service professor and director of field education for the UC School of Social Work – about writing the grant to launch the partnership and select and guide the UC students who would take part in it.

Susan Carlson, field service professor and director of field education for the UC School of Social Work

“We needed a liaison between the police officer and the survivors,” Conner says. “In many situations, the officer cannot discuss the case with the family, and when the family needed services such as funeral planning, the officer couldn’t provide that information. The students and the VALU Program coordinator assist with those programs and also invite these families to come together twice a month to share their stories with one another,” Conner says.

The students are working with police on cases affecting families who have lost a loved one due to homicide, suicide, an accident under investigation or the death of a child under the age of seven, which is required to be followed up by police.

The VALU Program provides short-term counseling, individual and group therapy services, assistance with funeral planning and referrals for housing or shelter, as well as direction on seeking assistance from government-funded victims of crime compensation programs.

“We work as liaisons with the families,” says Rumsey. “We found that we can take some of the load off the detectives by advocating for the families, providing them with information about support services, informing them about the grieving process and working between police and the families to address family concerns about the procedure of the investigation.”

Karen Rumsey, School of Social Work graduate student

“Some (members) of these families have suffered physical problems and have ended up in the hospital, requiring assistance from our staff to work with their employer to get time off from work,” Cook says. “We’ve assisted them in getting more time to pay their utility bills or worked with them to get resources to pay their bills, because the loved one who died was the sole provider.”

“There have been a number of situations in which the families needed case management support, such as a letter of recommendation, to relocate them to a new apartment because they’ve been threatened by people in the neighborhood,” Middleton says. She adds that because of their circumstances, these families also find it hard to find support groups where they feel like they can fit in.

Carlson can certainly empathize with the situations of the families and the significance of the VALU Program. She says she remembers well the shock and devastation of hearing from police seven years ago the news of the death of her son, 19-year-old Ben Carlson-Berne, who died in a hiking accident.

“In the (VALU Program) support group, almost everyone is the mother of a child,” Carlson says. “For parents, the death of a child is unthinkable. But then, to lose your child by murder, you begin to question your faith in society and justice and God. You question the circumstances of the murder. You want to know why, and who did this to your child.

“With this program, someone is now helping these families with these issues, while the detectives can focus on doing what they were trained to do – gathering evidence and building and solving a case,” Carlson says.

UC’s School of Social Work provides intensive preparation and experiential learning such as the VALU Program to prepare students to provide such support. “Our curriculum is fairly intensive and all of the students must learn to examine their own emotions, to reflect on what they have emotionally to offer to people, to empathize with people and to process their own emotions and bring them under control,” Carlson says. “The students also undergo intensive training to develop skills in how to engage people, assess situations – keeping in mind cultural diversity – and develop interventions to help people cope with the process of change. In situations that our students act on as part of the VALU program, many of these dynamics are interacting at the same time,” Carlson says.

Carlson adds that since many of the victims also have young children, UC’s Center for Community Engagement has assisted the program by providing UC student volunteers for child care services while families participated in the support group sessions.

The UC social work students in the VALU program found what an impact they had on the families when they developed sympathy cards that they sent to families, including around the Mother’s Day holiday, reminding them that people were thinking of them and waiting to offer support.

That acknowledgement is what prompted Shawn Willis of Avondale to get in touch with the program following the shooting death of her seven-year-old-son, Earl Robinson, last January, by an 11-year-old who was playing with a gun.

“It was rough. At the time it happened, I couldn’t understand anything and I was so angry,” says Willis. “After they sent me that card, I called right away and asked Monica and Cheryl to come to my house.” A later group session opened better relations between Willis and Cincinnati Police, and she says she continues to receive individual counseling as well as attend group sessions with other mothers who are coping with the deaths of children.

Monica Middleton, School of Social Work graduate student

“We have worked with a mother who has lost two sons to murder in the past six years,” Middleton says. “They need someone there to listen or they just need a hug. They just need that presence and sending those cards and letting them know we’re thinking of them and checking in with them, because many of them are traumatized.”

“I was amazed at how the sympathy cards touched the families,” Conner says. “Some of the families called me and said that they didn’t think the police really cared, and then they would say how much that card meant to them. Those cards were developed by the UC students to initiate contact and also open channels to assist the families with support services.”

Conner noted that the “amazing” UC student dedication to the program also comes from their own pockets, paying for refreshments provided at the family support meetings that they coordinate twice a month.

“The experiences working with survivors of homicide victims are very humbling,” says Rumsey. “What’s unique about our program is that we’re able to go to their homes instead of making them come to the homicide unit and reliving the trauma.

 “This is the best thing that I’ve ever done for my personal growth and my field experience,” says Rumsey.

Sergeant Conner adds that the students are already planning support for a time that can renew grief for families that have suffered a loss – the holidays. “A lot of the victims that we work with have small children, and the students are planning a holiday program with family members that includes a giving tree. They’re asking the officers to donate a small gift for a child just to make sure that child has a present for the holidays,” Conner says.

“They’re always working outside that box and this holiday program in the planning is one example,” Conner says. “They’re always doing something.”

Funding for the VALU Program

Funding awarded from the Ohio Office of the Attorney General’s State Victims Assistance Act funds

$50,500 – 2009-2010

$50,500 – 2008-2009

$56,111 – 2007-2008

$56,111 – 2006-2007