Archive for April 2025

Over a fifth of social workers working with children, young people and families have seen their service remove a child or children from their family in the last three years where unsafe or inappropriate housing conditions was a key contributing factor. Unsafe housing conditions can include maintenance issues, mould, damp, insect or vermin infestations or cramped conditions. More broadly, 78% of all social workers strongly agree that housing conditions are a concern for people they support, with 36% strongly agreeing that over the last three years the number of people they help living in unsafe or inappropriate housing conditions has increased.

“Schemas” are mental blueprints that filter how we see ourselves, others and the world. Most of us are not consciously aware of them. Yet schemas run deep. Problematic ones – such as “I am a failure” or “others can’t be trusted” or “the world is scary and unsafe” – can affect our mental health and lead us to destructive patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose consequences could ripple out for decades.

Student presenters from left to right: Noah Walker, Tylaa Berry, Sah’Myah Holloway, Cassidy Jones, and Samuel Jonah Walker.

Hundreds of children die in Texas each year from abuse and neglect. In an effort to preserve families, the state has employed several policies and laws intended to reduce the number of kids entering the system for various reasons — at times with grave results. Simultaneously — rather than bolster services to keep children safe — the state narrowed eligibility rules to access them, rejecting families in record numbers.

Two other journals did not want to be named for the story. Along with NEJM, CHEST, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, there are now at least five medical journals that have received letters from the DOJ — and there are likely others. “It’s likely that letters were sent to many more journals,” Reinhart told MedPage Today. “CHEST’s was simply the first to leak.”