Deidre Silas was a social worker working at The Illinois Department of Children and Family services in Springfield Illinois. On Jan, 4, 2022, Silas was stabbed to death while making a home visit by someone staying in the house. Safety has always been a concern regarding Social Work and the murder of Silas has encouraged people to advocate for policies to protect social workers.
Despite state officials’ pointing out changes they plan to make to protect workers, little difference has been made a year after Silas’s death. Those in the field state that one of the main issues that causes social workers to go to visits alone, is there are too many cases and not enough workers. A study done in 2020 showed that more than 73% of public child welfare workers had been verbally abused, 36% have been threatened, and about 50% have experienced symptoms of PTSD (Gerstein). Illinois has a policy that states that a social worker may delay a visit until they can have another person with them if the situation could be dangerous. Although this is ideal, it is not realistic for the oversized workload most social workers have to deal with.
Policies suggested include providing bullet-proof shirts to social workers, cell phone signal boosters, and panic buttons for investigators to contact law enforcement. Another controversial policy signed into law by Governor Pritzker, requires departments to provide their employees with pepper spray. Unfortunately it is widely reported that these changes are not happening soon enough. A lobbyist for the Illinois chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, Kyle Hillman states, “DCFS was not interested in things that were going to cost them more money; they’re interested in things that would make good media reports…We’re going to see more tragedies.” (Gerstein).
Works Cited:
Gerstein, M. (2023, February 22). Murdered on the job: A year after a child welfare investigator was killed, little has changed. Youth Today. https://youthtoday.org/2023/02/murdered-on-the-job-a-year-after-a-child-welfare-investigator-was-killed-little-has-changed/
While it has not been a statewide change, the Sangamon County DCFS Field Office where Deidre worked has had two deputies from the Sheriff's department assigned to work with social workers since shortly after her murder. They often go out on child removals, and they help research people in households since the law enforcement database they use is much quicker than the national child abuser databases social workers use. This change has been welcomed by the social workers at the office. When I visited the office about ten months after her murder, her cubical was pretty much untouched as she had left it, and posters asking for justice for Deidre were abundantly posted around the office.
The man who killed Deidre was allegedly suffering from a psychotic disorder, and possibly not understanding the situation when he stabbed her. My sources in the county jail described the man as being “crazy” ever since he became a guest of the county. Mental illness and substance abuse are frequently present as parental situations in the appendices of the annual report on child deaths from our state’s inspector general. That is, social workers covering the most difficult cases where children’s lives may really be at risk are often encountering adults who may be intoxicated of suffering from psychosis during a home visit. In the case of the DCFS worker Pamela Knight, who was also murdered in the line of work a few years before Deidre, the father who beat her up was just an angry and violent person. He took a plea deal and will serve 21 years incarcerated.
Social work is a dangerous job, but not as dangerous as commercial fishing, forestry, law enforcement, truck driving, construction, and a few other occupations like that. The Department of Labor has estimates of the number of injuries and deaths per hours worked in various occupations. Social work is more dangerous than most jobs, but not among the very worst (most dangerous) careers.
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