News (1,500 posts)

We see right through the unshowered soul living in a car by the beach, or by the Walmart, or by the side of the road. But he’s there, and he used to be somebody. He still is. A firsthand account of homelessness in America.

Fern meeting with a patient at Bellevue Hospital/SSW student, 1962

Faculty members at the University of North Texas at Denton fear their teaching and research on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion will be curtailed by their own university’s interpretation of a state law targeting DEI efforts — and, in one college, they say it already has.

The reforms come following recommendations laid out in the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care report, which was published following widespread reports of abuse and neglect at children’s care homes belonging to the Hesley Group.

People who had been detained offshore were 16.5-20.2 times more likely to report PTSD, five times more likely to report depression, and 4.6-5.2 times more likely to report suicidal ideation, compared to people who had been detained onshore for less than six months. A link between offshore detention and mental illness is not surprising. However, we were surprised by the magnitude of this effect.

Post-traumatic stress disorder comes in many forms and affects each person differently. Some patients benefit more from residential, in-treatment programs, while others are more suited for outpatient care. Others may thrive best in a system that mixes elements of both. A team of researchers found intensive outpatient programs, in which a patient consults with a health professional daily while staying at home in their community, are as effective as inpatient treatment, where patients can be isolated for weeks at a time.

Anna’s granddaughter was taken from her by Oranga Tamariki in a matter of minutes. The Chief Ombudsman – who found the uplift should never have happened – says Anna’s case is far from unique.

Researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have uncovered that stress changes how our brain encodes and retrieves aversive memories, and discovered a promising new way to restore appropriate memory specificity in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Approximately 10 hours or more of sedentary behavior per day is associated with heightened risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death, even in those who regularly exercise

In the short term, allowing social workers to practice across state lines can provide immediate relief to communities experiencing a severe shortage of mental health practitioners. If it goes into effect, the Social Work Licensure Compact’s multistate license would allow licensed social workers to practice in all participating states without going through the lengthy process of relicensing themselves in each state.

We know that we need to address the lack of investment in social care and social work due to real-terms cuts to core council budgets. Ninety-seven per cent of councils have staff shortages in social care, 90 per cent have shortages in social work and 6,120 people are waiting for a social care assessment.

The current work — using data from more than three million children from the United Kingdom and Sweden, including 17,495 who were exposed to antiseizure medications during pregnancy — found that children exposed to the antiseizure drug lamotrigine in utero were at no additional risk for autism or intellectual disability compared with those exposed to other antiseizure medications. However, children exposed to valproate, topiramate, and carbamazepine were linked to specific neurodevelopmental issues.

In 1983 she became a senior education welfare officer. And then, having taken a degree in social work at London School of Economics, a social worker. The work was demanding and could sometimes involve personal jeopardy. Once she was threatened with a knife. More than she would have liked, she had to go to court to remove a child from the turbulence of their home.

I just got off the phone with the Canadian feminist and activist Lee Lakeman. She is in hospice. The battles she has spent her life fighting, including her advocacy for impoverished aboriginal women prostituted in desolate urban landscapes such as the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, which once had the highest HIV-infection rate in the West, lay behind her. When she is gone, we are the ones who will be impoverished, bereft of her searing intellect and unwavering fight for justice. She will leave in her wake a sterling example of what it means to live the moral life, a life of meaning.

How do animal behavior researchers feel about the feelings of animals? A new survey helps to answer that question.

It also doesn’t help that all houses are configured differently, plus it’s challenging to optimise where sensors should be placed and which types to use. Different sensors pick up different information, such as movement, pressure, motion and so on, and it’s not always clear what will be most useful in each location.

SASW National Director, Alison Bavidge, has written to the Scottish Government following the recent announcement to postpone Stage 2 of the NCS Bill process.

Para athlete Lhey Marie Manginsay of Zamboanga Sibugay shows her medals after the 8th Philippine National Para Games…. A third-year social work student at the Sibugay Technical Institute… Manginsay earned comparisons to Paralympian Josephine Medina, who brought home a bronze medal in table tennis during the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Paralympic Games.

School social workers Caroline Doenberg, Marcy Alexander and Daniel Bubna work at Robbinsdale Armstrong High School.

Donald Trump’s victory only confirms the precariousness of the party’s position. It has consolidated a grand coalition of the American elite but in doing so has lost more and more of its working-class base. Its long quest to win the hearts and minds of the rich has cost the party, and the country, dearly.

Harm Reduction Coordinator Rebecca Urey says she expects most people to use the Naloxone, drug test strips, or hygiene kit. She says anyone can walk up and use the machine, and they only ask for a zip code so they can better serve those communities.

Neoliberalism may not be dead, but it is no longer the unquestioned ideology of our time. That leaves a huge opening for those on the Left who want to see a political and economic order based on democracy and solidarity rather than unbridled profit-seeking.

Councillors will be told that “Most services are experiencing increased demands in a context of growing financial constraints, new regulatory or legislative requirements and uncertainty with a National Care Service. Like other areas, there have also been challenges with recruitment in some services.

This traditional period of inner turmoil is often accompanied by weight gain, cosmetic treatments, ill-advised purchases and new hobbies. But is it becoming a thing of the past?

Chloe Lambert, who works at Shropshire Council, was awarded Adult Social Worker of the Year 2024 at a celebration event for social workers in London

On Dead Horse Ridge, in a part of Oregon’s Coast Range known as Blue and Gold, clear-cut private lands meet forested public lands. Soon, much of this whole area could be logged.

Tammy Thompson, left, and Katherin Youniacutt, right, pose for a portrait the night before filing a lawsuit against the state of Texas to reverse the 2019 law that prevents certain convicted felons from becoming licensed social workers.

A statewide program in Kentucky aims to provide credentialing and pathways to a career in social work for people in substance use disorder recovery.

Crisis pregnancy centers are faith-based nonprofit organizations that operate with the goal of persuading pregnant women to continue their pregnancies. They often open close to abortion clinics to intercept women who may be seeking to terminate pregnancies — whether by diverting patients through “sidewalk counseling” outside abortion clinics or positioning themselves close enough to clinics that would-be patients accidentally book appointments with them instead of their intended destinations.

As bill to allow terminally ill people in England and Wales to end their own lives enters parliament, supporters of the law change speak out. Above: Peter says his wife took her life while he was away to avoid implicating him in her death.

Against Child Abuse says social workers, medical staff and teachers among those that made about 180 hotline calls, up from 83 the year before

D, who specialises in mental health and addictions, takes regular doses of medical cannabis through a special vaporiser to cope with her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) plus other medical conditions.

Redress payments to survivors of institutional child sexual abuse will not be considered an “asset” for the residential aged care subsidy. Above: Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth (l) and Aged Care Minister Anika Wells.

Contrary to both far right and mainstream center-left, there’s no epidemic of chosen childlessness.

That Democrats are bleeding working-class voters from all demographics is indisputable, so a guilty party has to be found. Obviously the solution cannot be a sustained discussion of economic left populism, as this would challenge the class interests of donors and corporate consultants. So the only culprits that will be discussed in our discourse, again fueled by the very same people responsible for the historic collapse, will be ​“headwinds,” faceless cohorts of voters who we are told can’t have their minds changed, and vulnerable groups without the political or economic power to defend themselves.

American society rests on an assumption that families take care of their own. But 15 million Americans 50 and older didn’t have any close family — spouses, partners, or children — in 2015, the latest year for which reliable estimates are available. Most lived alone. By 2060, that number is expected to swell to 21 million. Beyond that, millions of seniors living on their own aren’t geographically close to adult children or other family members. Or they have difficult, strained relationships that keep them from asking for support.

Our new report shows that gaps in achievement between white, Black and Hispanic students in elementary school are primarily explained by differences in family socioeconomic status. That is, kindergartners from families with similar economic resources and educational backgrounds – among other factors – later displayed similar levels of achievement. This was true regardless of their race or ethnicity.

All patients who have had a heart attack are typically treated using beta blockers. According to a recent study, this drug is unlikely to be needed for those heart patients who have a normal pumping ability. Now a sub-study shows that there is also a risk that these patients will become depressed by the treatment.

Receiving benefits comes with stringent requirements around looking for paid work.

Hypertension, or a consistent elevated blood pressure level, is one of the biggest causes of premature death globally. Affecting 1.28 billion adults around the world, it can lead to stroke, heart attack, heart failure, kidney damage and many other health problems, and is often described as the ‘silent killer’ due to its lack of symptoms.

Men and adolescent boys are increasingly at risk of resorting to the dangerous use of anabolic steroids in a bid to achieve the desired muscular build modelled on social media, warn Flinders body image experts.

How the U. of Florida forced faculty cooperation with a GOP-backed civics center.

A new study finds that seniors who tend to mirror other people’s feelings are more likely to show signs of being anxious or depressed themselves.

Marie Mathieu became the first public library social worker in the state when she was hired to work at the Cambridge Public Library.

Today, people in wealthy countries can scarcely imagine life without a refrigerator, television or washing machine, but prior to 1960 very few households owned these appliances. From that point on, however, things moved quickly: just fifteen years or so later these items could be found in pretty much every kitchen and living room in these countries. This development from a society in which households own hardly any of these kinds of items to one in which almost every household has them is what the researchers refer to as ‘the domestic transition’. In their paper, they describe what this transition means for emerging countries and what factors contribute to a faster transition.

In calling for a shift to much more direct contact, the group – which included representation from local government, Cafcass, the law, academia and the adoption sector – recommended significant practice changes for both adoption and child protection social workers.

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Social Development has laid bare its financial struggles emanating from “significant budget cuts”, limiting its capacity to fill essential posts. This was revealed in a written KZN Legislature reply by Social Development MEC Mbali Shinga (above) to the DA KZN Spokesperson on Social Development, Shontel de Boer.

So even as our hearts break, we go on living. For our part, as a publication invested in the power of books and literature, I think now is the moment to throw out lifelines, to do what we can to offer even the smallest antidote to the kind of despair that makes so much sense this week.

The clandestine sharing of gun buyers’ identities — without their knowledge and consent — marked a significant departure for an industry that has long prided itself on thwarting efforts to track who owns firearms in America. At least 10 gun industry businesses, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Marlin and Mossberg, handed over names, addresses and other private data to the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Americans now spend more time alone, have fewer close friendships and feel more socially detached from their communities than they did 20 years ago. One in two adults reports experiencing loneliness, the physiological distress that people endure from social isolation. The nation’s surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, declared loneliness an epidemic late last year.