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A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program provides important flood insurance relief, researchers say. But due to its design, it’s used more in communities with greater means to protect themselves, while lower-resourced areas benefit less.
The case of a Muhlenberg College faculty member whose anti-Israel comments have been at the center of campus controversy for months has reignited in recent days, prompting a new wave of discussion about whether professors’ extramural speech is protected by academic freedom.
Dr. Ian Rice, the program’s Director and an Associate Professor of Social Work was instrumental in developing the curriculum and ensuring that the inaugural cohort of 33 would be well-supported. Rice emphasizes the importance of the program in addressing the chronic shortage of social workers across the region.
Research at the University of Portsmouth has explored the relationship between high impulsivity and boredom, in an effort to find out what drives rash and sometimes unhealthy decisions.
German Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Hubertus Heil speaks during the “Jobturbo” round table in the Federal Chancellery.
The hype surrounding machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, can make it seem like it is only a matter of time before such techniques are used to solve all scientific problems. While impressive claims are often made, those claims do not always hold up under scrutiny. Machine learning may be useful for solving some problems but falls short for others.
Psilocybin, the psychedelic substance found in magic mushrooms, is a promising new treatment for psychiatric disorders, especially depression. The beneficial effects on mood and anxiety of psilocybin are rapid and pronounced after just a single treatment. A small study even suggested that these benefits remain after a year. But what is really needed is a comparison of the long-term effect of psilocybin with another treatment (an antidepressant) or a placebo.
A new regional model for victim services that rolled out this week is prompting major concerns from Albertans who’ve utilized the program, and for former social workers who worry that the proper level of care won’t be provided. Above: Alberta’s provincial flag
Compared with inactivity, a weekend warrior pattern of exercise (concentrating most moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in one to two days during the week) or a more evenly distributed physical activity pattern were associated with similarly lower risks of diseases across 16 categories — from heart and digestive conditions to mental health and neurological illnesses. The findings indicate that concentrated physical activity patterns may be just as effective for disease prevention as patterns where exercise is spread out throughout the week.
Other lawsuits filed against the city under the law allege abuse at juvenile jails, including Crossroads in Brownsville, Brooklyn; Horizon, the city’s juvenile jail in the Bronx (above); Spofford, a now-shuttered juvenile jail in the Bronx; and Rikers, where the city used to jail 16- and 17-year-olds before outlawing the practice. The accusations range from the 1960s to the 2020s.
Ms. Triantafyllia Athanasiou, President of Hellenic Association of Social Workers and Dr. Ghassan Khalil, UNICEF Representative in Greece, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 30th September 2024, to strengthen Child Protection in Greece.
Children in youth offender institutions (YOIs) are being denied access to education, with too many being kept in their cells as staff struggle to keep warring youngsters apart, a damning new report has found.
A new data set put together by Bank of England economists has revealed that over two million Brits are employed by private equity-owned firms – or around 10 per cent of the private sector workforce.
The sign briefly tells visitors about the cemetery’s history, explaining that many of the hundreds of unmarked graves belong to people who died at “Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum where people with mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities were treated”.
In fact, in aggregate, the recent surge in immigrants will reduce the federal deficit, the Congressional Budget Office found; it indicated this was more so for higher- than lower-skilled migrants, although it said an increase in less-educated workers would also trigger stronger wage growth for the more educated people needed to work with them.
Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese has filed for bankruptcy protection in the wake of more costly lawsuits alleging priest misconduct as far back as 1950….The church, ultimately spending more than $30 million, thought it was done with such payoffs with the arrival of a 2012 state deadline for filing any related actions. But the Vermont Legislature adopted laws in 2019 and 2021 repealing the statute of limitations for submitting civil claims, leading to a new wave of cases that now number at least 16, according to lawyers.
New figures released to TFN through freedom of information legislation found widespread mishandling of homelessness cases in Edinburgh during August’s Fringe and in the days surrounding Taylor Swift’s record-breaking concerts at Murrayfield.
Alcohol consumption is also linked to other aspects of our own health and lifestyle and it’s important not just to consider this alone. Tobacco use and smoking, for instance, can significantly amplify the cancer risks associated with alcohol.
A new study has lifted the lid on how couples living with rheumatoid arthritis cope with the debilitating disease finding that those who cope with problems together had less psychological distress and better relationships.
A couple who were left with life-changing injuries after their Uber crashed have been told they cannot sue the company because of the terms they accepted when using the app.
This resource from PAARI draws from the experiences of embedded social workers in Jeffersontown, Kentucky
Naloxone is an “opioid antagonist” medicine. It attaches to opioid receptors in the brain to reverse and block the effects of opioids. Opioids include heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, and morphine, to name a few. When someone overdoses on opioids, their breathing can slow or stop altogether. Naloxone can quickly and safely restore regular breathing.
Memory loss is the most well-known symptom of dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. But experts say there are other warning signs that can signal early brain changes — ones that are especially important for types of dementia where forgetfulness is not the primary symptom. Just like occasional lapses in memory, these issues can also be attributed to other age- or health-related changes (or just a bad day), so experts emphasized that they aren’t necessarily red flags for dementia in isolation. But, especially in combination, they might be a sign that it’s time to see a doctor.
For many of those who have been trained by or worked with Teach First, this idea of floating between careers, in particular between public and private sector roles, bringing the connections and insider information along, will make perfect sense. That does not mean it makes sense for the teaching profession or those who rely on it, as 22 years of Teach First have demonstrated. Instead, all efforts should be dedicated to making teaching a more attractive profession to join and remain in for the long haul. Teachers need higher salaries, more funding, lower workloads, more trust. That is the real message from this new report. Not lie-ins, lucrative contracts or private sector influence.
Biomedical sciences are bringing increased focus to social determinants of health…. Very often, commercial interests are intertwined with these social and environmental factors, which has led to the recognition by WHO and other agencies of the need to study and address so-called commercial determinants of health. Commercial interests are an important component of the social determinants of addictive behaviors and disorders.
For months, professors, students and preservation groups have been fighting to save the School of Social Work building, which dates back to 1933 and was once the University Junior High School, which played a large role in the desegregation of Texas public schools. Its model of a successfully integrated school eventually led to the end of school segregation in Austin. Replace an historic building with a football practice facility that facilitates young men acquiring CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy)? Of course… it’s America.
Perhaps, on the debate stage, Mr. Walz can push Mr. Vance to commit to legislation geared toward treating people with substance use disorders. Mr. Walz can also expose how Mr. Vance turned his back on the things that helped make him who he is — public schools, public college and Ivy League opportunities — and catapulted him onto the very stage from which he will speak this week.
So even though my joints ache and my body slips into perimenopause, even though my marriage is going through a rough patch and my creative practice has seemingly died, I know I’ll be OK. In the words of Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “At least I have her love, the city, she loves me. Lonely as I am. Together we cry.”
In many parts of Florida, where housing costs are soaring and lawmakers have sharply curtailed abortion access, pregnant women and teens who need a safe, stable place to live are increasingly turning to one of their few options: charity-run maternity homes…. But Florida allows most homes to operate without state standards or state oversight. An examination by the New York Times and Reveal found that many homes require residents to agree to strict conditions that limit their communications, their financial decisions, and even their movements.
Mr. Kennedy has no meaningful claim to health expertise beyond an impressive geriatric six-pack and a do-your-own-research mantra. Nonetheless, he has gone from a fringe voice to the national leader of a rising “health freedom” movement powered by conspiracist thinking, resentment against the public health establishment and anti-vaccine fervor.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Board of Directors is aware of the online posts that have been maliciously published about alleged unfounded grievances against NASW Chief Executive Officer Dr. Anthony Estreet and several other employees at the Association.
Hundreds of social workers in England have begun using an artificial intelligence system that records conversations, drafts letters to doctors and proposes actions that human workers might not have considered.
China’s government has announced it is lifting the retirement age for workers. The changes set to go into effect from January 1, 2025, are seen as an attempt to mitigate the effects of a rapidly ageing society and slow down the draining of pension funds.
Local authority umbrella group COSLA said it cannot support the current bill.
For Hong Kong and Taiwan, neoliberalism’s falling tides made political repression inevitable.
World War II reorganized the economy and geography of the United States. By the 1940s, pushed by Jim Crow and pulled by employment in war industries, more than six million Black people relocated to urban centers. US government guest-worker programs also spurred immigration from Central and South America—a fair-weather reversal of the deportation project that had ejected two million Mexicans just a decade before. LA’s population of Black residents nearly doubled. But interlocking real estate exclusions restricted the places Black and Brown people could live to just five percent of the area of the city.
“Imagine being trapped in your bathroom for weeks on end!” says XX. “That’s what it’s like, since the toilet is right in there with you. But it’s worse, because you’re trapped in this tiny space with another individual. No time outside, no programs, no psychologists making the rounds like they’re supposed to. You pretty much just lie in your bunk all day. I pass my time mostly reading, but that gets old after a while. So, you jump off the bunk, walk around the cell a little, do a few push-ups and then jump back on the bunk. Over and over again.”
MH sifts through paperwork from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission at her home in Texas.
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has welcomed the publication of a report on Northern Ireland’s strategy for the prevention of suicide and self-harm.
Hong Kong students and university faculty previously accustomed to academic freedom must now tread carefully to avoid retribution for what they teach, research and publish – and even with whom they associate – according to a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on academic freedom in the city since the 2020 National Security Law was imposed by Beijing. The law prohibits “secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces” to endanger national security but definitions of what constitutes such offences are vague.
A mural by graffiti artist Eme Freethinker depicting German chancellor Olaf Scholz after the country legalised recreational cannabis use on 3 April 2024.
As a social worker, Hoa has sat down with dozens of victims of domestic violence…. Hoa works at a women’s shelter in southern Vietnam. She asked that a nickname be used and her place of work concealed due to the sensitivity of domestic violence in the country.
The troubling trend of despair and fatigue among those who work for environmental and climate change — a phenomenon described as ‘climate burnout’ — could jeopardise vital commitment to the cause. New Flinders University research explored the exacerbating and attenuating factors of despair-induced climate burnout to learn how people can overcome despair and maintain motivation to fight climate change.
The Farmer-Labor Party was part of a movement that spanned rural and urban areas in Minnesota to fight corporate greed and provide mutual aid. It was the state’s strongest alternative to the two-party system until 1944, when it merged with Democrats to create the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party that Minnesotans know today. “This place was always a flashing beacon for progressives,” says David Bednarczuk…. who lives in Hibbing. When he joined the cooperative in the 1970s, he was one of the first members who did not speak Finnish. Part of a new generation of antiwar environmentalists, he helped reenergize the park after what he called a “lost generation” of members were subjected to FBI surveillance and political repression during the McCarthy era
Above: Uniformed members of Trail Life USA present the colors at the Family Research Council’s 2018 Values Voter Summit.
Research shows that medications for opioid use disorder — buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone — reduce opioid use, prevent overdose deaths, and support long-term recovery. Among people who were formerly incarcerated, access to these medications during incarceration or at release has been shown to reduce overdose deaths, increase use of community-based treatment(link is external), and decrease rates of reincarceration(link is external). However, access to medications for opioid use disorder in jails remains limited due to various barriers, including cost, staffing, and regulatory challenges.
Dozens of service providers, advocates, and affordable housing organizations signed onto a letter Wednesday calling on the Republican governor to take executive action to halt the evictions of hundreds of vulnerable households from motels and hotels across the state, including families with children, elderly people, and people with severe disabilities. Above: T and her daughters prepared to leave… as their emergency housing voucher expired.
All under 18s who were previously detained in YOI Polmont have now been moved into secure care settings. New regulations came into force on 28 August and as of that date, there will be no new admissions of children under 18 to YOIs.
An international rights NGO has invited Hong Kong’s government to clarify what it called “fabricated content” in a report published by the NGO that noted there had been a “severe decline” in academic freedom in Hong Kong since the enactment of a security law in 2020. Above: Central Government Offices in Admiralty, Hong Kong.