News (1,281 posts)

Researchers say that parents and doctors should be mindful of how they talk to and treat children experiencing pain — no matter how big or small the injury — knowing that these foundational experiences can be carried forward into adulthood.

A new look into addiction treatment availability in the U.S. criminal justice system reveals that fewer than half (43.8%) of 1,028 jails surveyed across the nation offered any form of medication for opioid use disorder, and only 12.8% made these available to anyone with the disorder.

There were no words, just devastation. As we texted, I was trying not to picture what it looked like inside of Apalachee.

The recommended target dose for buprenorphine in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approved labeling is 16 mg per day. Researchers found that those taking higher daily doses of buprenorphine (>16 to 24 mg) took 20% longer to have a subsequent emergency department or inpatient health care visit related to behavioral health within the first year after receiving treatment, compared to those receiving >8 to 16 mg a day. Those taking daily doses of more than 24 mg of buprenorphine went 50% longer before having a subsequent emergency or inpatient health care visit related to behavioral health within the first year after receiving treatment, compared to those receiving >8 to 16 mg a day.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s children’s services had been branded inadequate by Ofsted just months before Ronnie Higginson’s death

An Australian study from this year found that more than half of 18- to 35-year-olds reported they had been strangled during sex at least once. A similar proportion admitting to strangling a partner at least once. Though strangling is common among both men and women, evidence shows that women are more likely to be strangled and men more likely to do the strangling.

Using MRI scans of almost 1,000 Dutch people, researchers show that there is indeed a connection between brain structure and ideology. However, the connection is smaller than expected. Nevertheless, the researchers find it remarkable that differences in the brain are linked to something as abstract as ideology.

New research finds that adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders have high rates of comorbid mental and substance use disorders and significant social and economic disadvantages, and only 26% received minimally adequate treatment. Meeting the needs of people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders will require innovative interventions and implementation to improve access to and use of evidence-based approaches, the authors argue.

Some individuals have a persistent tendency to want ever more stuff and status. Psychologists are examining the lives they lead.

The team began by mapping networks over time in six people with major depression and 37 healthy controls. They found that the salience network, which includes brain regions in the frontal cortex and striatum, was almost twice as large on average in people with depression. This network is involved in reward processing and determining what to pay attention to. The size of the salience network did not change over time in people with or without depression. Nor did it relate to depression symptoms in people with depression.

Preferra Insurance Company RRG has taken the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) to court, accusing the professional body of failing to fulfill its obligations to the social workers insurer.

Professor Ray Jones reflects on a career that has spanned practice, leadership and academia, the need for less specialisation in social work and his role in responding to the ‘Baby P’ case. Above: Ray in the 1970s as a newly qualified social worker

Loneliness has become a worrying public health matter because it is common and is often associated with people experiencing physical and mental health problems. There is now taxpayers’ money being spent at the local, national and international levels on initiatives to minimise loneliness and the harmful effect it can have on people’s health. But are those investments misjudged?

A domestic offender was AWOL at court after social workers recommended he be sent to prison.

The lawsuit a neuroscientist filed earlier this month accuses the six largest academic publishers of colluding to create a business model that diverts money from scientific research “into their pockets.”

Studies show that loneliness is associated with negative health outcomes like elevated levels of heart disease and a higher risk of dementia.

Brenda Rosen, MSW, CSW is the National Association of Social Workers – Kentucky Chapter Executive Director, with 43 years of social work experience, she is passionate about advocating for human rights.

This week, the world’s heads of state are gathering in New York City for the annual United Nations General Assembly. The goal at the very top of the U.N.’s sustainable development agenda is to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere.” Given that all 193 U.N. member countries have pledged to achieve the U.N.’s development goals by 2030, we should expect to hear where the world stands in this critical effort.

The Department of Health and Human Services has published new policies on research misconduct, which apply to research institutions receiving funding through the U.S. Public Health Service. The policies set standards that institutions must follow when investigating and potentially sanctioning researchers alleged to have engaged in research misconduct.

Lynette (far left) with Cheryl Kitchener, Bill McCarthy (NSW member for Northern Tablelands) and John Nalson (Pro Vice Chancellor, UNE) at the opening of Oorala in 1986

Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis are the cofounders of the Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU), a multilingual formation organizing across the vast sprawl of the city. Situated in multiple organizing histories, LATU organizes to build tenant power and to prefigure a housing system not built on a foundation of extractive and carceral relationships with landlords or the state. Rosenthal and Vilchis have written a radical treatise, Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis, that uses the authors’ organizing experiences with LATU—and one of its predecessors, Union de Vecinos in Boyle Heights—to make an argument for a permanent rent strike; the abolition of rent.

“We have a profound shortage of affordable housing in the state,” said Dr. Nicholas Barr, Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, outside of Siegel Suite flexible-stay apartments in Las Vegas.

Sometimes, the best thing a parent can do is nothing at all.

There are 20 adult social work apprenticeship positions available starting in January 2025. This offers a unique opportunity to study for a fully funded social work degree with the University of East Anglia (UEA) while working for the council. Above: Councillor Richard Howitt, chair of Cambridgeshire’s adults and health committee.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s latest covid bulletin spreads anti-vaccine misinformation by telling Floridians to avoid mRNA vaccines.

For Hawa Lee, pursuing a Master of Applied Social Work was more than just a return to academia. It was a transformative journey that deepened her commitment to helping others and grew her passion for mental health advocacy.

A 9 mm “ghost gun” pistol build kit with a commercial slide and barrel with a polymer frame is displayed in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C. More than a dozen states, including some battleground states, debated and enacted a variety of firearms regulations addressing storage requirements, gun-free zones, bans on firearm purchase tracking and permitless carry.

Childhood trauma can raise the risk of developing major diseases later in life that vary based on a person’s unique experiences and even their sex, new research concludes. Why it matters: Although it’s widely understood that trauma early in life has biological and real-world health impacts, the findings shed light on how different life experiences can shape the way the body functions and make a person susceptible to chronic diseases.

Given these challenges, or at least hefty qualifications, to this presentation of Trump’s white working class base, it is curious that Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol’s Rust Belt Union Blues appears to accept its premise hook line and sinker.

Despite its name, pink cocaine doesn’t necessarily contain any cocaine. Instead, it’s often a mixture of various other substances, including MDMA, ketamine and 2C-B. MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, is a stimulant with psychedelic properties while ketamine is a powerful anaesthetic which has sedative and hallucinogenic effects. 2C drugs are classed as psychedelics but they can also produce stimulant effects.

For their study, the researchers assigned the participants, who all came from different professional sectors, to four groups of roughly equal size. The smartphone group reduced their private smartphone use by one hour a day for one week. The sport group increased their daily physical activity by 30 minutes. The combination group did both, and the control group didn’t change their routine at all. All participants completed online questionnaires before these interventions, immediately afterwards and two weeks after the intervention period ended, providing information about their well-being, both with regard to work and mental health.

One woman’s story of opioid use disorder and joining an NIH clinical trial

Most people believe in fair pay for honest work. So why aren’t low-wage workers better paid? After 30 years of research, I can tell you that it’s not because employers don’t have the cash — it’s because profitable corporations spend that money on their stock prices and CEOs instead.

As the city continues to grapple with high rates of juvenile delinquency, Dr. Lovell is offering critical insights into how understanding the developmental phase of emerging adulthood could be the key to addressing the crisis effectively.

The FDA says abortion pills are safe if taken as directed. Here’s what patients should expect…. What some people call the “abortion pill” is actually a combination of two pills — mifepristone and misoprostol — commonly called “abortion medication.”

Researchers at ETH Zurich have used a drug screening platform they developed to show that an antidepressant, currently on the market, kills tumour cells in the dreaded glioblastoma – at least in the cell-culture dish. Above: Glioblastoma cells under the microscope.

I am a 42-year-old woman about to undergo a mastectomy to treat breast cancer. I’m increasingly feeling what I think is anger, which has always been a difficult emotion for me to experience in myself. In the past I’ve squashed it down and turned it inwards, resulting in a low mood. However, I feel as if I’m about to have a reckoning with anger.

RC holds a picture of his biological mother and brother while sifting through family mementos at his apartment

On the anniversary of Mayor Rahm Emanuel closing a swath of Chicago’s mental health clinics, the mayor’s detractors rally at his office in 2013.

I am not crying for Carl Icahn, who has lost about $17 billion over the last few weeks as investors have fled Icahn Enterprises stock. I’m talking about it today because the saga offers an important lesson about why the American economy hasn’t been working for most Americans in this era of shareholder capitalism.

Since 1964, the Head Start program has been a lifeline for generations of women and families, providing free, high-quality educational, health, social-emotional, and nutritional services and opening doors to opportunity and economic justice that had long been kept shut. Now, as Head Start approaches its 60th anniversary, it’s a great time to look back on all that the program has achieved — and look forward to what our country could look like if Head Start was strengthened.

Outsourcing development to the private market leaves affordable housing subject to the boom-and-bust cycle of private investment. What’s more, the federal government relinquishes the oversight needed to protect tenants from abusive landlords and racial discrimination. The result is a housing market where corporate landlords make record profits while half of America’s 44 million renters struggle to pay rent. For a generation of young people, the idea of home has become loaded with anxiety; too many know they can’t find an affordable, stable place to rent, let alone buy.

The distribution of these locks continues as long as the supplies last, “We know that talking about guns and firearms can be a stigmatized or politicized conversation, and we just want to talk to folks about safety,” Sarah Carter, a social worker at Kennedy Krieger Institute, stated.

The number of people taking ADHD medication is at a record high – and the NHS is feeling the strain as it tries to diagnose and treat the condition. Since 2015, the number of patients in England prescribed drugs to treat ADHD has nearly trebled, and BBC research suggests that it would take eight years to assess all the adults on waiting lists.

As a clinical social worker and health scholar with 40 years of experience in end-of-life care and bereavement, I knew that I needed some way to tend to my grief for my mother. While in lockdown, I began looking for resources to help me. Then I heard about the wind phone.

Social workers who work with older people will know how important the Winter Fuel Allowance is for health and wellbeing. The Allowance gives older people the confidence to keep their homes heated without fear of large bills that they cannot afford to pay.

Budget negotiations are coming to a head as the countdown is on within Government for Budget Day on October 1…. The welfare package for Budget 2025 will be finalised by ministers and senior officials shortly.