News (1,500 posts)

A ‘marketplace of ideas’ in which everyone is heard equally isn’t possible when billions use social media

The loose use of lurid pejoratives serves no one well. The terms provoke defensive reactions in the sector which then potentially make a real problem worse. The attacks erode confidence in the higher education system as a whole and perpetuate the use of invectives without tying those terms directly to what’s going on in practice.

On September 24, thousands of people converged in Washington, DC, for the Crime Survivors Speak March on Washington. It was the first such gathering in the nation’s capital for people who have lost loved ones to homicide, as well as survivors of gun violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

Some faculty see corporatization at Columbia—which mirrors trends of increased corporate governance across institutions of higher education—as decentering the University’s academic mission and treating its operation as a business.

On October 16, join Joe Kishore and Jerry White—the Socialist Equality Party’s candidates in the presidential election—and SEP Political Committee member Tom Hall for a discussion of the perspectives and strategic issues which the working class face in the 2024 elections.

As I wrote in my last book Bootstrapped, we can learn from the New Deal 1930s. The way Democrats talked then was much clearer, for example identifying opposing groups like “the workers” and “the bosses.” When the New Deal coalition collapsed in the 1970s, neoliberals took their place. For nearly fifty years, they have made believe that there are no sides—no “bosses” and “workers,” only those who grabbed opportunity and those who didn’t—all while adopting increasingly right–wing talking points about the economy.

This week, the American Association of University Professors gave its blessing to mandatory “diversity statements” in hiring — as long as the faculty votes for them first. FIRE has long argued that such statements can too easily function as ideological litmus tests and has repeatedly warned against them.

Legislation has been introduced in Scotland and Westminster, and organisations and individuals will be invited to make submissions of evidence as the legislation passes through the parliamentary stages.

Austin Peay State University’s Department of Social Work recently provided Narcan training and certification to 30 pre-field and current practicum students, equipping them with crucial skills to combat opioid overdoses.

Menopause isn’t a disease or disorder. It’s a normal part of a woman’s life. Menopause marks the end of menstrual cycles and fertility. Even though it’s a natural process, the transition to menopause can be difficult for some women.

The Republican Party’s electoral promises include cutting existing federal funding for gender-affirming care and restricting transgender students’ participation in sports. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party platform proposes to outlaw discrimination against LGBTQ people, including passing the Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, health care and public accommodations.

“We don’t want to re-traumatize families, particularly when there could be a lapse in communication,” said DaMia Harris-Madden (above), Commissioner of the state Office of Children and Family Services. “We just want to make sure that we’re doing the right things with families.”

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic (lab-made) opioid. Prescription fentanyl is FDA -approved to treat severe pain related to surgery or complex pain conditions. Over the past decade, fentanyl that is made and distributed illegally has become increasingly common in the illegal drug supply and has contributed to a surge in drug overdose deaths. Above: According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, 2 mg of fentanyl (which can fit on the tip of a pencil) can be enough to kill the average American.

Within the past three decades, environmental scientists and urban designers have suggested that place authenticity is all about sensory experiences. According to this view, it is places rich in sensory stimuli – such as sights, sounds and smells – that enhance our perception of authenticity by engaging our senses and creating memorable experiences. However, our recent research challenges this conventional idea, revealing that the experience of authenticity is more complex. Sensory experiences can contribute to a sense of authenticity, but they are far from the sole determinant.

A new study from the University of Turku in Finland showed that reducing daily sitting prevented back pain from worsening over six months. The result strengthens the current understanding of the link between activity and back pain as well as the mechanisms related to back pain.

In study after study, most people fail to realize how generous, trustworthy, and open‐minded others really are. The average person underestimates the average person.

A national investigative nonprofit on Monday lodged discrimination complaints against more than 200 California landlords and their representatives — including major real estate brokerages — alleging they illegally refused to rent to Section 8 voucher holders…. “There’s nothing more tragic than when a family gets … an opportunity to get a home and they can’t because real estate isn’t following the law,” said Aaron Carr, executive director of the Housing Rights Initiative. “It’s time for California to get tough.”

Weill Cornell Medicine researchers found that the possibility of parental disclosure through online patient portals led older adolescents to hesitate in sharing complete health information with doctors, putting them at risk of missed diagnoses and treatments. The paper noted that confidentiality concerns were increased among females and those who are sexual and gender minorities.

Turning 65 begins the process of taking one of two major paths, which each have a thicket of health care choices.

Waythrough, which launched 1 October, combines the expertise and resources of Humankind and Richmond Fellowship, two national charities that share values, ambitions and decades of experience supporting people with substance use, mental health, housing and associated needs.

Globally, concern is growing about the high and steadily increasing rates of anxiety and depression in young people. Effective and scalable ways of preventing poor mental health in this group are needed, and digital tools such as mobile apps have been proposed as part of the solution. Whilst there is emerging evidence for mental health apps being effective in treating anxiety and depression, this project led by the University of Exeter is the first to rigorously test a mental health app on such a large scale across four countries.

The confusion of my illness helped me understand Buddhist theories of ignorance and its role in the relief of suffering

We’ve seen dramatic increases in life expectancy over the 19th and 20th centuries, thanks to healthier diets, medical advances and many other quality-of-life improvements. But after nearly doubling over the course of the 20th century, the rate of increase has slowed considerably in the last three decades, according to a new study led by the University of Illinois Chicago.

Brenna Alexander (left)fills her backpack before her shift with granola bars, taxi vouchers and Narcan, the opioid overdose reversal medication. The UC San Francisco clinical social worker then goes to single-room occupancy hotels in the city, knocking on doors and slowly gaining the trust of residents, many with mental health conditions, so she can help them stay housed.

We are part of a new project, Lives Cut Short, that seeks to re-energize efforts to prevent maltreatment fatalities through improved data collection, timely notifications of child deaths and greater transparency. Unfortunately, efforts to make fatalities a significant part of the conversation are often met with resistance. This opposition is founded on several inaccurate perceptions — and a misguided belief that we can reduce stigma by keeping conversations about child safety behind closed doors. Above: Drs. Emily Putnam-Hornstein, left, and Sarah Font

It is midday on a Friday, and I am in a room with about a dozen teenagers at an international school in Oslo, Norway. We are talking about how and why they use TikTok, the digital video-sharing application.

The percentage of smokers in each of the UK countries in 2023 was 13.5 per cent in Scotland, 13.3 per cent in Northern Ireland, 12.6 per cent in Wales and 11.6 per cent in England.

Important work is progressing to address Dumfries and Galloway’s children’s care crisis, with the ultimate aim of eventually ending the practice of children and young people in care being sent to unfamiliar locations elsewhere in Scotland – at astronomical costs.

Plans to create a supported living scheme for people aged 16 and over in a Wrexham village could be approved despite anti-social behaviour concerns.

“We were stunned (by the decision),” said Armenta, a retired emeritus social work professor. “We had been in communication with the communications director of the Texas Historical Commission since July. As time went by, we decided to go ahead and file the open records (request) because we were just anxious to figure out what the next steps might be. (Then) boom … we found out.”

Legislative attempts to limit academic freedom and censure campus speech are continuing, but they are becoming more subtle and disguised, according to a new report from PEN America…. Along with the report, PEN America also released an up-to-date Index of Educational Gag Orders, featuring all the restrictions introduced and passed in state legislatures over the past four years.

Members of the Quality Hill Tenant Union launched a rent strike on Oct. 1.

Opening the ceremony at the Tullyglass House Hotel, Ballymena, Patricia Higgins, chief executive, Northern Ireland Social Care Council, said: “I’ve been very proud today to celebrate the hard work, dedication and achievement of our social workers.

The introduction of Progress comes after Frontline’s Pathways programme was scrapped in April after DfE stopped funding the scheme, which launched in 2022, two years earlier than expected. Frontline’s chief executive Mary Jackson announced the end of the leadership scheme at a meeting of the Education Select Committee.

The headquarters of the central Post Office in Naples, located in Piazza Matteotti, has been occupied by social workers from Gesco who displayed a banner reading “Welfare is not a luxury.”

The City of Airdrie has released its 2024 Houselessness Estimation Study…. The top three reasons cited for housing insecurity were high housing costs (rent/mortgage exceeding income), health challenges (including illness, mental health concerns, and physical disabilities), and low vacancy rates, with an estimated one per cent of rental units available in Airdrie.

Unicef and the Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW) called for the urgent passage of the long-awaited Social Work Profession Bill to address the critical shortage of trained social workers in Malaysia, particularly for the country’s most vulnerable communities.

As a hurricane intensified by hot ocean water now threatens to destroy the Tampa Bay region, Florida Republicans bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry are pushing legislation that would bar the president from declaring a climate emergency. Reps. Greg Steube and Byron Donalds, both Republicans who have together received more than $175,000 from oil and gas interests over their relatively short careers, cosponsored the House version of the bill last year, which frames the climate crisis as a “false emergency.”

“Our youth, particularly underrepresented youth, are not getting high quality services, and when we don’t reach them, they’re at risk for their disorders or conditions to worsen over time,” says Dr. Jennifer Manuel, the School’s Associate Dean for Research and an Associate Professor. “Substance use is highly correlated with ongoing mental health issues and being involved in the justice system. There are a host of reasons why we want to address this head on.”

Working people understand that the periodic ups and downs of the economy can legitimately lead to job loss. But they also know that in many cases the reason they lost their job was not mismatches in supply and demand. Rather, their jobs were sacrificed to satisfy out and out corporate greed.

A cash-strapped English council is considering charging parents of children taken into local authority care half of the weekly cost of looking after them.
Derbyshire county council said “unprecedented financial challenges” meant it had little option but to “maximise alternative sources of income” to try to reduce the strain on its children’s services. The weekly charge would range from £90 to £113 depending on the child’s age.

Berkessel and her team found that, overall, participants with obesity reported more relationship, economic, and health disadvantages compared with participants without obesity. But they also found that those living in low-obesity regions were significantly more likely to be unemployed — and to report suboptimal health compared to their counterparts in high-obesity areas.

Rehearsing alternative outcomes of discarding through imagery rescripting shows promise as a treatment strategy for people who hoard, a study by UNSW psychology researchers has shown.

Michigan has made meaningful progress in supporting social workers over the past year — progress we can build on to further strengthen the profession and tackle the mental health care provider shortage.

According to the researchers, based on the study’s findings, commercially insured patients more often received treatments like physical and occupational therapy, noninvasive neurostimulation, and chiropractic care for chronic pain, whereas Medicaid-insured patients more often received medications. This suggests that type of health insurance is linked to differential access to the full range of evidence-based treatment options for chronic pain.

“Daddy, tell me about the days when you were able to save Germany just in time,” a young girl asks her father as the two sit on the veranda of their idyllic home in an AI generated video by the youth wing of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. “It all started with the great remigration,” replies the father, birds chirping as they gaze out over their flowery garden. And then the dance beat kicks in. This is the beginning of the video for Remigration Hit, a far-right dance track which imagines the deportation of migrants from Germany en masse. The widely shared video for the song portrays mostly blond-haired, blue-eyed pilots and flight attendants — embodying, it seems, delusive Nazi conceptions of “Aryan” racial purity — dancing in celebration as they deport people of color in planes decorated in the blue and red of the AfD.

‘When you have a short supply of those professionals to start with, what happens is a domino effect,’ says Kathy Jones, the President of the Prince Edward Island Association of Social Workers.

The original proposal for a National Care Service was inspired by the NHS; a network of care boards across Scotland, all part of a new agency which could ensure high standards. Ministers said it would end the “postcode lottery” in care provision and “ensure consistently high-quality care”. Those are undoubtedly laudable aims, which few have argued against. But the detail has always been an issue.