The UK’s national living wage has just been raised by 10% to £11.44 per hour. It is now payable for all workers aged 21 and over, where previously it was for those aged 23 and over.
Idaho suspends social worker scholarship program, citing budget concerns
As Alyssa Reynolds (above) walks down the halls of an Idaho Department of Health and Welfare office, she sees familiar faces: Students who’d received a scholarship meant to boost Idaho’s foster care workers. That led her to pitch a story for Boise State University on the success of the Title IV-E Child Welfares Scholar program.
Barnet social workers restart their pay fight
Mental health social workers employed by Barnet council in north London returned to picket lines on Monday this week…. They returned having beaten the council’s use of agency workers to break the strike.
Power outages leave poor communities in the dark longer: Evidence from 15 million outages raises questions about recovery times
We analyzed data from over 15 million consumers in 588 U.S. counties who lost power when hurricanes made landfall between January 2017 and October 2020. The results show that poorer communities did indeed wait longer for the lights to go back on. A 1-decile drop in socioeconomic status in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social vulnerability index was associated with a 6.1% longer outage on average. This corresponds to waiting an extra 170 minutes on average for power to be restored, and sometimes much longer.
McGill researchers receive SSHRC Partnership Engage Grants
Professor Régine Debrosse (School of Social Work – above) will partner with Chalet Kent, a non-profit organization that supports youth in the Montreal neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges.
Last Year, You Spent More Than a Month’s Rent on Pentagon Contractors
CMS Proposes New Policies to Support Underserved Communities, Ease Drug Shortages, and Promote Patient Safety
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued a proposed rule updating Medicare payments and policies for inpatient hospitals and long-term care hospitals. The proposed rule takes a variety of approaches to improving the health of people with Medicare by addressing social determinants of health, strengthening emergency preparedness, and improving maternal health.
DfE scraps social work leadership training scheme
A flagship leadership development programme for children’s social workers has been scrapped by the Department for Education because of budget cuts. Social work charity Frontline, which has run the Pathways programme since 2022, had been expecting the funding to be extended for a further two years but has been told by the DfE that it will now end this July.
Raising awareness of the vital role of carers
NELFT NHS Foundation Trust provides a range of community health and mental health services across the north east London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge, Waltham Forest, Essex and Kent and Medway.
What are the EU’s new migration rules, and why did they take so long to pass?
Members of European Parliament voted to approve the pact after nearly a decade of negotiations.
Why Do We Age? Scientists Are Figuring It Out.
Scientists are working to understand the biological causes of aging in the hope of one day being able to offer tools to slow or stop its visible signs and, more important, age-related diseases. These underlying mechanisms are often called “the hallmarks of aging.” Many fall into two broad categories: general wear and tear on a cellular level, and the body’s decreasing ability to remove old or dysfunctional cells and proteins.
Social work students rally for paid field time and fewer hours
Dozens of social work students from NYU and several other East Coast universities gathered at Washington Square Park to call for changes to their programs, including paid field learning hours, in a rally on Sunday.
Maine is latest state to approve interstate compact for social worker licenses
The Maine Legislature passed a bill to join the compact on Friday. Seven other states have enacted similar legislation, and the proposal is pending in at least 19 others, according to the National Association of Social Workers.
To understand the risks posed by AI, follow the money
We ought to heed Collingridge’s warning that technology evolves in uncertain ways. However, there is one class of AI risk that is generally knowable in advance. These are risks stemming from misalignment between a company’s economic incentives to profit from its proprietary AI model in a particular way and society’s interests in how the AI model should be monetised and deployed.
Hawkins named to new vice dean role at UNC School of Social Work
Robert L. Hawkins, Ph.D., associate dean for academic and faculty affairs at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at nearby North Carolina State University, has been named to the new position of vice dean at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work
Present and future outlook of Türkiye’s welfare system
Türkiye has overhauled its welfare model and significantly increased social protection investments in the past two decades, with Erdoğan’s policies greatly improving the conditions of many in society. Above: A man takes a ride in a ferry crossing the Bosporus in Istanbul, Türkiye
Two key brain systems are central to psychosis
Inside the brains of people with psychosis, two key systems are malfunctioning: a “filter” that directs attention toward important external events and internal thoughts, and a “predictor” composed of pathways that anticipate rewards.
How conservative policy is changing college enrolment trends
A large majority of American college and university students are so strongly in favour of abortion, gun control and the freedom to study ‘divisive topics’ such as critical race theory that they are either considering leaving their colleges or not applying to those in so-called ‘Red States’ like Florida, where (Republican) Governor Ron DeSantis has been waging a culture war against these issues.
What Martin Luther King Jr. Knew About Crime and Mental Illness
Mental illness isn’t a crime, and jail isn’t the answer for those experiencing it. We must meet the needs of people in crisis with treatment and support. In order to do so, we need more funding.
Social Worker Reflects on Her Profession, the New UAB Social Work Partnership
Hannah Rose Harkins is a social worker in UAB’s Center for Psychiatric Medicine.
Cost and Access Are Not the Only Barriers Women Face in Getting Lifesaving Mammograms
A new CDC Vital Signs study finds that only about 65% of women ages 50-74, with three or more health-related social needs, are up to date with their mammograms. Breast cancer causes more than 40,000 deaths in women each year in the United States, and screening mammograms have been shown to reduce breast cancer deaths
Unfunded research: Why academics do it and its unvalued contribution to the impact agenda
Restored story: Oranga Tamariki’s new wave of trauma
The failings of Oranga Tamariki go beyond the troubled chief executive Grainne Moss – Newsroom has learned the agency’s wholesale taking of Māori children until last year is now being reversed in a blunt instrument policy to return ‘uplifted’ tamariki even when they face new trauma.
Economic burden of childhood verbal abuse by adults estimated at $300 billion globally
Professor Xiangming Fang said: “The economic burden of childhood verbal abuse by adults that we have quantified clearly highlights the shocking hidden cost of the damage it causes to children throughout their lifetime. However, this is likely a considerable underestimate given the impact of childhood verbal abuse on several outcomes including healthcare utilisation costs and legal system expenses, which were not included in the analysis due to data unavailability.”
The Rich: On Top of the World and Very Anxious About It
Thanks to neoliberalism, inequality in many societies has significantly increased since the 1980s. And yet, even amid this new Gilded Age, the ambient pull of democratic ideas is still apparently strong enough that many at the top of the pyramid feel compelled to pretend their presence there is something other than an accident of birth.
Dr. Evan Stark, 82, Dies; Broadened Understanding of Domestic Violence
Dr. Stark was a research associate at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies from 1978 to 1984. He was hired the next year by Rutgers University and taught in its School of Social Work as a professor of women and gender studies until he retired in 2012.
Requiem for The New York Times
The newspaper is a pale reflection of what it was when I worked there, beset by numerous journalistic fiascos, rudderless leadership and myopic cheerleading of the military debacles in the Middle East, Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, where one of the Times contributions to the mass slaughter of Palestinians was an editorial refusing to back an unconditional ceasefire.
After Decades of Imprisoning Patients, Idaho Approves Secure Mental Health Facility
The Idaho Legislature has approved funding for a 26-bed facility after ProPublica found that state lawmakers and officials ignored repeated warnings about the practice of locking up mentally ill patients who hadn’t been convicted of a crime. Above: Psychiatric patients have been detained, sometimes for months at a time, in cells like this one in the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Boise.
First Indigenous family health clinic opens in Montreal
The cedar room at the Native Montreal Family Clinic.
What seniors want: I don’t want to die alone
If a sensor in Madam Liew Thye Moi’s home detects a fall, social workers will be alerted.
Brain stimulation treatment may improve depression, anxiety in older adults
A noninvasive brain stimulation treatment improved depression and anxiety symptoms among older adults in a new University of Florida-led study.
Many of us have the wrong idea about poverty and toughness
This finding is just one example of a well-documented pattern of neglect and mistreatment of lower-income individuals, especially people in poverty. Students from lower-income families receive less positive attention from their teachers. Lower-income customers receive worse treatment while shopping. Lower-income patients receive less care from their physical and mental healthcare providers. And lower-income defendants receive harsher punishments in the courtroom. More generally, people in poverty receive less help and less support interpersonally and institutionally across many domains of everyday life.
Why anti-abortion advocates are reviving a 19th century sexual purity law
The Comstock Act… is an 1873 anti-obscenity law, named after anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock. The law, which is still on the books, calls for banning the mailing or shipping of “every obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article, matter, thing, device, or substance.” In addition, it specifically outlaws mailing “every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” The intent of the law was not expressly about abortion, according to Mary Ziegler, law professor at the University of California, Davis. Instead, it was about what Comstock and his contemporaries called “sexual purity.”
‘I cannot even buy a used car’: Readers weigh in on higher ed’s compensation practices
We wanted to know if Chronicle readers have had their own compensation frustration, so we put out a request. Hundreds of you wrote in with stories of stagnant pay, opaque raise processes, and worries about the future. Here is just a small sampling of what you shared with us.
Puerto Rico’s Unnatural Disaster
US healthcare is defined by the greed and inequality that its patients must battle, but Puerto Rico’s calamity is unique. Thanks to a combination of colonial neglect, a disastrous legacy of privatization that has given health insurance companies outsize control, and a series of devastating austerity measures in recent years, it’s not just patients who are feeling the impact; it’s also the people who are supposed to look after them. Puerto Rico has seen a mass exodus of doctors that has left it struggling to provide even the most basic level of care. And no medical specialty has been affected more than pediatrics.
Unisa sets the record straight about its Social Work programme
The University of South Africa (Unisa) has raised concerns over an article regarding its Bachelor of Social Work programme. Unisa expresses deep concern regarding the significant inaccuracies present in both the headline and various sections of the article.
From boom to burst, the AI bubble is only heading in one direction
No one should be surprised that artificial intelligence is following a well-worn and entirely predictable financial arc
A university cut tenured faculty’s pay. They’re suing
Along with a secure post and academic freedom, tenured professors enjoy financial security—or so many outsiders imagine. In fact, many tenured faculty are expected to cover much of their salary with grants, and may be penalized with salary reductions if they do not. That’s what happened at Tufts University School of Medicine—and some researchers are fighting back.
Vietnam Sentences Billionaire to Death for White Collar Fraud
As global billionaires see their wealth soar to record heights, one Vietnamese real estate tycoon was sentenced to death on Thursday in the Southeast Asian nation’s largest-ever financial fraud case, part of a government crackdown on corruption.
An Honest Assessment of Rural White Resentment Is Long Overdue
What isn’t said enough is that rural whites are being told to blame all the wrong people for their very real problems. As we argue in the book, Hollywood liberals didn’t destroy the family farm, college professors didn’t move manufacturing jobs overseas, immigrants didn’t pour opioids into rural communities, and critical race theory didn’t close hundreds of rural hospitals. When Republican politicians and the conservative media tell rural whites to aim their anger at those targets, it’s so they won’t ask why the people they keep electing haven’t done anything to improve life in their communities.
HUD Proposes Rule to Reduce Housing Barriers for People With Criminal Records
If the rule becomes official, simply having a criminal record would not automatically or categorically deny access to or terminate someone from HUD-assisted housing—including public housing, housing choice vouchers, and HUD multifamily housing.
BASW General Election Blog: Investing in Good Quality Housing
The housing crisis in the UK continues to deepen, and successive governments have failed to address it. There has been a significant reduction in social housing of 1.2 million homes since 1979, and there has been no serious drive to increase supply since then.
Turkey seizes 608kg of cocaine as ‘drug corridor’ fears grow
Groups monitoring organised crime warn that Turkey is becoming entry point for drugs reaching Europe
B.C. First Nations Justice Council releases women’s justice plan
Darla Rasmussen (above) addressed hundreds of delegates as the council released the final draft of its Indigenous Women’s Justice Plan (IWJP), a plan she said comes after two years of hard work and listening to people around the province.
Building Better Futures For Tamariki
Members of the Mātauranga Ake team, including whānau and tamariki navigators, social workers and team leaders
White rural rage: The secret political force shaping America’s future
The authors of new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy point out that rural whites are measurably more bigoted and xenophobic than suburban or urban voters, 13 points more likely to hate on queer people, 15 points more likely to support Trump’s Muslim ban.
MSW students showcase challenges faced by incarcerated mothers and families through day of empathy simulation
Four Master of Social Work students, Brandi Stokes, Christian Thompson, Kyra Spengler, and Mandi Carroll, all worked together to create a simulation at Trauma Informed Oregon’s Day of Empathy event. The simulation highlighted the communication barriers mothers and their families experienced in Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.
Nitazenes found in 5 overdose deaths in Philly – here’s what they are and why they’re so deadly
Nitazenes are a class of synthetic opioids that contains more than 20 unique compounds, including isotonitazene, which was first identified in 2019 and is known on the streets as ISO. It also includes protonitazene, metonitazene and etonitazene. Nitazenes are psychoactive substances, or “designer drugs,” that aren’t controlled by any laws or conventions but pose significant health risks to the public. These substances have recently surfaced as illegal street drugs.
Right-Wing Media and the Death of an Alabama Pastor: An American Tragedy
A memorial to Bubba, which was unveiled on March 26, 2024. Part of the Smiths Station memorial sidewalk, the marker is located in front of the Historic Jones Store Museum, a local heritage project that he had championed and that opened in 2019.
The Cass review into children’s gender care should shame us all
Three and a half years after it began, we finally have the findings of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into NHS youth gender identity services. It is a damning indictment of how badly we, as a society, have let down a group of vulnerable and highly distressed children.