Haley
Scott,
LLMSW
Social Worker
Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office, Wayne State University
Haley Scott is a social worker at the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office working in collaboration with Wayne State University’s School of Social Work. She helps provide grief support, referrals, and resources to families in addition to collaborating with community partners and the WSU SSW. As the office is a practicum placement for WSU, Scott also assists as a task supervisor for MSW and BSW students. Additionally, Haley is a PhD candidate in Social Work and Anthropology (SWAN) at WSU with a focus on social justice issues after death.
Presenting at the Nexus Summit:
The role of the medical examiner’s office (MEO) is to determine the cause, mechanism, and manner of death for violent, sudden, or unexpected deaths. At Wayne County’s MEO in Detroit, Michigan, the office handles approximately 17,300 death investigations per year, with over 3,500 cases accepted for examination. An organization that sees deaths due to homicide, suicide, and accidental overdoses, the MEO makes for opportune social work intervention due to stigmatized grief. These deaths carry increased risk of complicated grief, as the bereaved may become isolated with limited social support (…