Public Library Social Work – Elissa Hardy, LCSW

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

Elissa Hardy, LCSW, Community Resource Manager at the Denver Public Library, describes how social workers and peer navigators are embedded across 26 library locations to serve people experiencing homelessness, immigration challenges, mental health issues, reentry from incarceration, and more. She shares how this model has evolved and how her team has intervened in over 23 overdoses. This episode makes a compelling case for the library as a frontline community resource—and for social work's role within it.

In this episode:

• The evolution of library social work and how it operates across 26 Denver Public Library locations
• The range of issues social workers address—homelessness, immigration, mental health, reentry, benefits access, and more
• How the team has intervened in over 23 opioid overdoses
• How social workers and peer navigators collaborate with librarians to serve diverse communities

Email ehardy@denverlibrary.org
http://denverlibrary.org

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Music credit
"District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/