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Kim Raff saw constant turmoil growing up in an abusive, addiction-laden family. She was moved between at least seven states, attended five middle schools, spent the 10th grade unhoused and went through the foster care system twice.
“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood . . . back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism . . . to one’s youthful idea of “the artist” and the all-sufficiency of “art” and “beauty” and “love” . . . back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.” Henry James
Burbank Mayor Nikki Perez MSW ‘2018 at her swearing in with other members of the Burbank City Council. She’s the youngest mayor to serve the Southern California city in its history as well as the first Indigenous and openly LGBTQIA+ mayor.
“Many people experiencing homelessness are even more deeply attached to their animals than people who have homes,” Christine Kim, MSW, told NASW. Kim is the founder of My Dog Is My Home, a nonprofit that works to ensure that unhoused “human-animal families” have safe, low-barrier co-sheltering and co-housing options. “Their animals may be their only consistent source of support and companionship.”
Neoliberalism opposes government regulation and spending, and supports the free market. It also fosters an individualistic worldview. Instead of seeing themselves as workers, citizens or members of a collective, people are persuaded to internalise market logic – to see themselves as individuals who are out to maximise their personal profit. The cultural shift from more communitarian and egalitarian ideals towards an ideology based on the self-driven individual and the free market has been quite successful. Empirical evidence from 41 countries shows that individualist practices and values around the world have surged significantly over the past 50 years.
Department of Health and Social Care will not renew Think Ahead’s contract to deliver programme to train mental health social workers, with 2025 cohort being its last