News (1,500 posts)

Put differently, private insurers currently have administrative costs that are 1,000 percent what they would be under single-payer, while hospitals currently have administrative costs that are 158 percent what they would be under single-payer. The excess administrative expenses of both the payers and the providers are because of the multipayer private health insurance system that we have.

“I want to express deep disappointment in the fact that Congresswoman Nancy Mace (above) came to a national foster youth event, told participating youth that it was a safe space — and literally had one of them arrested by Capital police for simply shaking her hand and asking about trans rights,” said Lisa Dickson, a veteran advocate for foster youth from Ohio

The Department for Education’s (DfE) proposed reforms include regional commissioning of care placements, greater transparency around provider pricing and new powers for Ofsted to investigate providers of multiple children’s homes and fine providers of unregistered services.

“Native students are never going to feel really welcomed unless the non-Native faculty go out of their way to make sure that those Native students feel welcomed,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Tan Li-San, the chief executive officer of the National Council of Social Services, says becoming its CEO felt like coming full circle as she’d started out as a youth volunteer.

School-issued laptops, loaded with Beacon software from GoGuardian, awaiting repair at Neosho High School.

Many recent studies assume that elderly people are at particular risk of dying from extreme heat as the planet warms. A new study of mortality in Mexico turns this assumption on its head: it shows that 75% of heat-related deaths are occurring among people under 35 — a large percentage of them ages 18 to 35, or the very group that one might expect to be most resistant to heat.

A mentor once told me that we take better care of our pets than we do older victims of mistreatment. As a researcher, I have sat across from people, including grown men, crying while recounting harrowing experiences of discovering and confronting elder financial exploitation within their families — by siblings, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, girlfriends and neighbors. Above: Dr. Tina Kilaberia

The battle against ‘woke’
Social worker Daniela Zalazar was laid off from the “144 hotline,” a 24-hour public and free service for people seeking help due to gender-based violence. For years, she and her team aided hundreds of women seeking immediate help or advice to face the violence they experienced. But shortly after Milei took office, the program was dismantled down to 30% of its capacity — and people like Zalazar didn’t make the cut.

For many, violence from an intimate male partner becomes a pathway into homelessness, leaving women navigating a world that often feels indifferent to their experience. At Simon Community Scotland, we witness these struggles every day, and our mission is clear: to provide safety, support, and hope to women who need it most. We provide a range of services specifically designed for women and a fundamental priority for us is to provide support that is truly gendered, trauma informed and recognises women’s unique needs.

“If you come from an accredited social work program, you can go anywhere and go into an advanced standing program, meaning you can get your accelerated master’s in social work in a year,” Social Work chair Dr. Tricia Lizama (left) explained.

The accrediting group that oversees about 170 colleges in California and Hawaii is considering cutting the words “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion” from the standards that its member colleges must meet. The WASC Senior College and University Commission is considering the changes as conservative lawmakers at both the state and federal level consider ways to curb the authority of accreditors and eliminate any consideration of DEI on college campuses.

Character.AI is among a crop of companies that have developed “companion chatbots,” AI-powered bots that have the ability to converse, by texting or voice chats, using seemingly human-like personalities and that can be given custom names and avatars, sometimes inspired by famous people like billionaire Elon Musk, or singer Billie Eilish. Users have made millions of bots on the app, some mimicking parents, girlfriends, therapists, or concepts like “unrequited love” and “the goth.” The services are popular with preteen and teenage users, and the companies say they act as emotional support outlets, as the bots pepper text conversations with encouraging banter.

As recognised by ancestral wisdom and Indigenous practices, our need to repair relationships is a deep-rooted instinct

Trump and his allies have floated a number of changes, such as barring accreditors from requiring that colleges adhere to diversity, equity, and inclusion standards. Republicans have also proposed creating new accrediting agencies that promote conservative values and allowing state governments to take on the role of accreditors.

Over four days this September, mural artist and restorationist Damon Lamar Reed and three assistants restored the burnt panel, which depicts a social worker standing outside a factory with a sign that reads “Legislators Protect Women and Children.” Another social worker bends a metal bar that makes up a web-shaped cage trapping factory workers, allowing a young boy to climb out. Above: The restored panel of Astrid Fuller’s 1977 mural “Pioneer Social Work” along the 57th Street viaduct

The Safer Futures domestic abuse helpline is run by First Light in partnership with Barnardo’s

The Department of Social Work plans to prioritize applications for the supervision program from graduates who are working in nonprofit or governmental settings, due largely to the great need for licensed professionals in these areas.

All societies – and the states that serve them – have a responsibility to protect their children from harmful addictions. And addiction is exactly what social-media companies are trying to cultivate. As Facebook’s founding president, Sean Parker, revealed in 2017, the process of building the platform was guided by a simple question: “How do we consume as much of [users’] time and conscious attention as possible?” The answer these firms reached lay in “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology”: the desire for social validation.

Dr. Margaret Paauw (left) and Chelsea Muto at the YDL Superior Branch. Dr. Paauw oversees intern placements at the Ypsilanti District Library…. She previously specialized in library social work in Chicago.

Emerging data suggests the biological response to mental health stressors may be more pronounced in women, a possible explanation for gender disparities in cardiovascular disease following abuse.

I wouldn’t get too optimistic about imminent systematic change. Rather than making their business models more humane, it’s likely that health insurance companies will simply invest more money in private security. Indeed, it seems that security companies are already seeing an uptick in business.

Theta burst stimulation (TBS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique known for modifying human behavior and treating neurological diseases. A group of scientists conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis to determine the effective TBS protocols for addressing schizophrenia symptoms and cognitive impairment. Their findings suggest that intermittent TBS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex may offer a promising alternative to antipsychotic drug-based treatment.

Michigan has poured roughly a quarter of a billion dollars into D.E.I. since 2016, according to an internal presentation I obtained.

Texas leaders have shown a decadeslong antipathy toward Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program that covers millions of low-income and vulnerable residents. They declined additional federal money that, under the Affordable Care Act, would have allowed Medicaid to offer health care coverage to more low-income families. The state was among the last to insure women for an entire year after they gave birth. And when the federal government last year ended a policy that required states to keep people on their Medicaid rolls during the coronavirus pandemic, Texas officials rushed to kick off those they deemed ineligible, ignoring persistent warnings that the speedy process could lead to some people being wrongfully removed.

Deaths of despair, which are caused by drugs, alcohol or suicide, are disproportionately experienced by men. Meanwhile, many of the traditional markers of manhood – earning enough money to raise a family, buy a home or even rent an apartment – are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. What does it mean for society if young men sense that their masculinity is under threat? Or for our politics if young men see less hope for the future?

More recently, New York Attorney General Letitia James (above) launched an investigation into non-consensual drug testing of mothers and infants. The AG’s special prosecutor, Galen Sherwin, has stated that the routine testing leads to “the separation of newborns from their parents in the first days of life, interfering with bonding and breastfeeding and causing government agencies to open unwarranted, invasive child welfare investigations.”

Access to psychotherapy has risen substantially among U.S. adults with mild to moderate distress since 2018, according to a new study. The increase in psychotherapy use is particularly notable among younger adults, women, college-educated individuals, and those with higher family incomes. Privately insured individuals also experienced greater gains in psychotherapy use compared to those who are publicly insured or uninsured.

Matt Moore, Ph.D., associate dean of student and academic affairs in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky, has been elected president of the Alliance of Social Workers in Sports.

Its annual report says education and social care professionals “are working hard under immense pressure” but “where systems are under strain, it is vulnerable and disadvantaged children” who are being most adversely impacted.

The study found widely varying responses in rats, revealing that individual reactions to the unpleasant aspects of drug consumption can be important in determining susceptibility to addiction.

Last week, Parliament passed sweeping reforms to Australia’s aged care system. These “once-in-a-generation” changes, set to begin next year on July 1, aim to improve how care is provided to older Australians at home, in their communities and in nursing homes.

Fluoridated water has been extensively studied, and its benefits are well documented. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, water fluoridation reduces cavities by about 25% across all age groups. It’s a public health measure that works passively – every sip of water helps protect your teeth, without requiring you to change your behavior. This is especially important for vulnerable populations. Above: ‘Stop Fluoridation’ banners hang from an overpass in Dallas.

History “may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) may be the most widely anticipated way Social Security changes from year to year, but it’s far from the only one. Inflation, wage trends and new policies directly affect not just the more than 68 million people receiving Social Security benefits but also the estimated 184 million workers (and future beneficiaries) paying into the system. 

Fewer psychologists and social workers in Connecticut accept patients covered by Medicaid compared to neighboring New England states…. Latest OHS data showed that more than 1.5 million people in Connecticut lived in places with mental health workforce shortages. That shortage comes as one in five adults statewide has experienced a mental health disorder.

The first study to definitively show a link between cannabis use and schizophrenia was conducted in 1987 and examined 45,000 Swedish soldiers. They found that those soldiers with high cannabis use (more than 50 uses) had a sixfold greater chance of developing schizophrenia over 15 years.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has issued a serious warning about the state of the nation’s mental health system, claiming it’s failing those who need it the most.

The Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve any medications for treating stimulant use disorder. What does the evidence say?

To express solidarity with the “Zehar se Mukti” campaign, many social workers on Tuesday staged a dharna outside Nehru Park in Abohar. They condemned those factories which regularly discharged chemical laden water into Buddha drain of Ludhiana.

Dozhier is one of a growing number of students from UM’s social work, school counseling and mental health counseling programs who have delivered such services for K-12 children in Montana’s far-flung rural districts. What began as an experimental effort to address the mental health side of school safety has, over the past five years, evolved into a fixture both for the university’s Safe Schools Center and for the small schools it serves. Dubbed VAST — short for Virtually Assisted School Teams — the program now boasts six grad students and 22 participating districts stretching from the Bitterroot Valley to the North Dakota border.

I had heard rumors about men having sex in Mexico City’s subway system. But nothing prepared me for what I witnessed on my first ride in the último vagón.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicare and VA data found that Medicare Advantage insurers collected billions of dollars a year in premiums to provide medical coverage for about one million veterans like Kitt, even though they go to the VA for some or all of their healthcare needs.

The author Joyce Carol Oates weighed in on social media, after an initial version of this story was published, saying that the outpouring of negativity “is better described as cries from the heart of a deeply wounded & betrayed country; hundreds of thousands of Americans shamelessly exploited by health-care insurers reacting to a single act of violence against just one of their multimillionaire executives.”

Quebec’s decision is part of a global “culture change” in recent years as countries have become aware of serious shortcomings in the way many adoptions are carried out, Dr. Anne-Marie Piché, a Professor in the Social Work Department at the Université du Québec à Montréal who studies adoption, said in an interview.

“If the Labour government maintains the current course, we must assume that mental health and emotional wellbeing are being attacked with strategic intent, not merely as a side effect”

UnitedHealth Group is the largest health insurance firm in the country and the health care giant has grown to control a growing share of the health care industry overall. It now also holds the title of the largest employer of physicians.

Dr. Nguyen Trung Hai, Head of Social Work Department, University of Labor and Social Affairs, shared at the training session.