news, new scholarship & more from around the world
Staff in social work teams across Lancashire – including at White Cross in Lancaster – are to walk out for 25 days, including during the festive period, as part of the sixth round of strikes over salary grades and work boundaries.
Officials from Qatar Social Work Foundation at the Global Forum against Racism and Discrimination, in Barcelona, Spain.
There’s plenty of data to back up the anger over private health plans expressed online since the shooting. Insurance costs are far outpacing inflation, leaving patients with soaring out-of-pocket costs. Health insurance companies are notorious for exploiting prior authorization schemes to avoid paying for care and have denied claims at alarming rates in recent years. However, corporate consolidation of industry “middlemen” that experts say are partially to blame for the prescription drug affordability crisis has received less scrutiny from the general public, despite efforts by lawmakers and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to shine light on the notoriously opaque and confusing corporate bureaucracy that determines the cost of medicine.
> Conservative-leaning “parent rights” groups are succeeding in their children’s book ban campaigns as sales drop.
> Librarians say they are afraid to put books considered controversial on the shelves.
> Most of the banned children’s books deal with race or LGBTQ+ themes.
One open-access publisher, MDPI, based in Switzerland and founded in 1996, has published one million articles since its establishment, including 295,186 peer-reviewed articles in 2022 in its 403 journals. As an open-access publisher, MDPI charges a transaction fee of approximately US$2,000 per article. MDPI reports that it relies on 600,000 reviewers and has a rejection rate of 57%. These numbers are impossible to verify.
Analysis of student essays using generative AI detection systems to identify GenAI users showed that students who use GenAI score significantly lower in exams – on average 6.7 out of 100 points lower – with the negative effect particularly large for students with high learning potential, according to researchers in Germany and Canada.
Jackie Chen appeared at Hong Kong’s District Count… for her rioting retrial.
… the industry is rife with health and safety violations. Not only are American consumers – mostly women, eager for low-cost manicures and pedicures – increasingly at risk for bacterial and fungal infections, but the salon workers themselves – many of them undocumented, and over 80% women – face workplace exploitation in addition to threats of toxic contamination. The industry is in desperate need of regulatory reform, union organizing and stronger labor enforcement.
On Dec. 9, WW first reported that CareOregon, the state’s largest Medicaid provider, would stop reimbursing next year for services provided by associate therapists and social workers who practice independently of an in-network clinic. The announcement sent shock waves among mental health professionals, some of whom said the policy change would worsen Oregon’s mental health care access crisis.
My short request to you or anyone you care about is as follows: If you are thinking about enrolling in the University of Arizona Global Campus — don’t! I’m speaking with you as a professor at the UA who has seen this disaster unfold, and I cannot be quiet any longer. I care too deeply about students who are potentially wasting thousands of dollars on an education that does not live up to its promise.
“There are many questions including how cannabis can impact someone’s mental health positively or negatively. And social workers want to be prepared,” says Joan Pittman, PhD, MSW, LCSW-C, clinical professor and director of the MSW Program at the Universities at Shady Grove.
But it’s not AI that has a lot of professors worried. It’s what lies behind that willingness to cheat. While the reasons vary by student and situation, certain explanations surface frequently. Students are working long hours while taking full course loads. They doubt their ability to perform well. They arrive at college with weak reading and study skills. They don’t value the assignments they’re given. They feel like the only way they can succeed is to be perfect. They believe they will not be punished — or not punished harshly — if caught. And many, it seems, don’t feel particularly guilty about it.
The report, prepared by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, exposes a litany of complaints from social workers who say they are struggling with excessive caseloads, chronic understaffing, low wages and insufficient training.
The Swedish Board of Health and Welfare reports that in 2022 10.5% of boys and 6% of girls received an ADHD diagnosis, which is 50% more than in 2019. And the board forecast that the rates will eventually plateau at 15% for boys and 11% for girls.
The government says the harsher sentencing rules are in response to “community outrage over crimes being perpetrated by young offenders” and will act as a deterrent. But many experts have pointed to research showing that tougher penalties do not reduce youth offending, and can in fact exacerbate it. The United Nations has also criticised the reforms, arguing they disregard conventions on the human rights of children and violate international law.
A Glasgow learning disability worker has been hit with a warning after getting into a physical and verbal fight with a colleague outside a client’s home.
How did the granddaughter of incarcerated Japanese Americans wind up on ICE’s payroll? Above: Japanese internment camp in Manzanar, California
Limiting red meat consumption is key to a sustainable and healthy diet, yet Americans are among the world’s largest consumers of red meat. A new study reveals the demographics of American adults who choose not to eat red meat and finds that environmental concerns may matter more to them than health risks.
A bill under consideration by the Montgomery County Council would provide discounted public parking permits for child care center workers and social workers in homelessness services who are affected by Purple Line construction in downtown Silver Spring.
The term “fidelity” comes from the sciences and refers to the precise execution of a protocol in an experiment to ensure results are reliable. However, a classroom is not a lab, and students are not experiments. As a result, teachers and teacher educators have long decried fidelity and the impact it has on them and their students.
At a Powys County Council meeting on 5 December, social services chiefs explained that they need more money to deal with the increasing demand for care packages for adults and the higher costs of placements for children in care.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Professor Nentawe Yilwatda disclosed this in Enugu during the commissioning of a 100KVA Transformer procured by the Ministry for the Federal School of Social Works Emene, Enugu State.
The Ruah Centre for Women and Children has now officially opened and includes eight self-contained Safe Places units that will provide emergency accommodation for up to 307 women and children experiencing family and domestic violence each year.
Data from the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel revealed that 485 children were affected by serious incidents between April 1 2023 and March 31 2024.
… when Harris emerged as the party’s nominee, she did so as a moderate, distancing herself from the progressive policies that had defined the Democratic platform four years earlier. She went on to spend much of the campaign trail alongside former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). The shift was glaring: Harris abandoned her earlier posture as a reformer and progressive prosecutor, opting for a new message that mostly — with the exception of abortion rights — tried to shake off any hint of progressive politics, and it instead embraced Trump’s law-and-order rhetoric on the border, deferred to gun culture and American militarism, and distilled free-market principles through the dystopic language of “opportunity economy.”
The U.S. is forecasted to fall in its global rankings below nearly all high-income and some middle-income countries. Drug use disorders, high body mass index, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure are driving mortality and disability higher across the U.S. Future scenarios for health outcomes identify the states that are forecasted to gain ground, face stagnation, or grow worse. Scientific evidence underscores the urgent need to prioritize public health to prevent the economic consequences of sickness, disabilities, and premature mortality in the U.S.
According to federal government data, 1,906 deaths apparently linked to opioid poisoning were recorded between January and March 2024, an average of 21 deaths per day across Canada. Of all accidental deaths apparently linked to opioid poisoning, 81 per cent involved fentanyl.
Nearly 16% of people changed their sexual identity over a 12-year period, according to a new study I conducted with my colleagues, involving around 35,000 residents of Stockholm County. This challenges long-held beliefs about sexual identity being largely fixed.
In an interview this summer from her Southern California apartment, a mother from San Pedro described the role her methadone use played in the loss of three children over a decade…. “They basically said I was still on drugs, I was still a drug addict,” she said.
At a meeting of the city’s Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee, councillors voted six to five in favour of proposals to strip people experiencing homelessness of their right to adequate housing through the provision of suitable temporary and permanent housing.
A stark analysis sent to the Government by leading voices in the sector has warned high employment costs, too-low fee rates, and councils struggling to balance their books are all threatening its overall sustainability. Collapses in social care provision could leave those in need without care, add to the responsibility on family carers, and increase pressure on NHS services, Care England and the Homecare Association said.
Fourth-year Bachelor of Social Work student Courtney Williamson is completing her final placement in Sweden, where she’s gaining hands-on experience in the field she’s passionate about. Above: Courtney (right) with her mentor Vasiliki Chaita, Futuraskolan International School of Stockholm’s social worker.
Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, both on their way out of office, took one last chance to help out Republicans, voting to give them control of the NLRB. Sinema is a social worker and is listed as an Assistant Teaching Professor, in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University.
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.