COVID-19 made a hard job even worse for Kentucky social workers. Please honor them.

Kentucky’s social workers and family support specialists in the Department for Community Based Services, like so many hard-working Kentuckians, have spent the past 18 months serving their neighbors under extremely trying conditions. For Kentucky’s child welfare professionals, COVID-19 has added layers of complexity to an already challenging job. Social workers and family support specialists work face-to-face and hand-in-hand with people struggling with trauma, poverty, substance use, physical and mental health issues and more. Their dedication should inspire us.

For context, consider part of the job description for a Cabinet for Health and Family Services social worker: Provides emergency services on 24-hour basis, including accepting referrals and completing investigations at any hour without prior warning. As a result of enforced intervention, the worker runs the risk of physical harm.

While the pandemic has greatly added to the pressure and stress of these jobs, even before COVID-19, social workers and family support specialists were working to help Kentucky children involved in foster care and doing so by following state policies that prioritize keeping children with family members and increasingly, remaining in their home communities. This has been done in collaboration with community partners and the office of the courts to ensure all checks and balances and resources are in place.

That often means connecting parents or relatives with financial and medical assistance and helping them find jobs or training that leads to jobs, in order to provide Kentucky’s foster children with the stable home every child needs and deserves.

In short, DCBS social workers and family support specialists are making life better for fellow Kentuckians. They are empowering residents of our commonwealth by instilling confidence, encouragement and support for overcoming some of the greatest challenges any of us will ever face, but that many of us can’t even imagine.

I mention this now because Child Welfare Worker Appreciation Week is Sept. 13-17 and it’s abundantly clear that Kentucky’s team of social work and family preservation professionals are both a huge asset and a wonderful investment that benefits the commonwealth. What may be less clear, given the incredible challenges they face, is why these people take on these jobs in the first place. I asked a few of them, here are two responses that exemplify what many of these professionals say about their work:

Devin Reul, a social service clinician in Jefferson County, said, “I do this job because there are children who need us, families in crisis and people struggling, because it is people’s responsibility to support one another and, because it’s the state’s child welfare agency that is empowered to advocate for those most vulnerable.”

“In rural Appalachia, we learn from an early age to take care of your people. For me, being a DCBS child welfare social worker is taking care of your people, often the ones who are unheard and facing multiple challenges. My love for the people and the desire for them to see the good inside themselves will always be my ‘why,’ ” said Danna Hinkle, a social service worker from Martin County.

This is why it’s critical that we support social workers and family support specialists – always, but especially now. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Governor Beshear has said, “We will get through this, we will get through this together.” These child and family professionals bring life to this by providing life-changing support and commonwealth-altering assistance to Kentucky’s families, communities, schools, health care systems, social services, businesses and more.

Kentucky, please help us celebrate Child Welfare Worker Appreciation Week by finding ways to honor the many social workers and family support specialists who are providing essential help to support and strengthen Kentucky children and families. They are heroes, and they deserve our thanks and appreciation.

Eric Friedlander serves as secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.