Public Library Social Work – Elissa Hardy, LCSW

Episode 16
Guest: Elissa Hardy, LCSW
Host: Shimon Cohen, LCSW

www.dointhework.com
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If you love what we discuss on the podcast, then you will love our courses! We focus on frameworks, knowledge, and skills to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive, justice-based liberatory practice. CEs are available. Check out https://dointhework.com/courses/ to learn more and register. We hope you will join us!

In this episode, I talk with Elissa Hardy, who is the Community Resource Manager at the Denver Public Library in Denver, Colorado. Elissa details the evolution of library social work and how social workers and peer navigators work with librarians to serve diverse populations across twenty-six total locations. We discuss the work Elissa and her team carry out providing social work services to library customers experiencing a range of issues such as homelessness, immigration and refugee status, gentrification, access to benefits, mental health, reentry from incarceration, and much more. Elissa explains how her team has been able to intervene with people struggling with addiction, specifically opioid use, and how they have stopped over 23 overdoses. She also shares her story of how she got into this work. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Elissa’s email: [email protected]
Denver Public Library website: http://denverlibrary.org