Montori and several colleagues found that 40% of patients with chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and neurological disorders “considered their treatment burden unsustainable.” When this happens, people stop following medical advice and report having a poorer quality of life, the researchers found. Especially vulnerable are older adults with multiple medical conditions and low levels of education who are economically insecure and socially isolated.
Social policy programs in Türkiye for disabled people’s welfare
Türkiye’s evolving welfare initiatives for people with disabilities have drawn attention, though they are widely still experimental compared to established systems
The Accurate Term
I was a scared kid—fearful of snakes, failing a spelling test, getting lost in a department store, waiting alone in the car while my mom dashed into 7-11 for milk and cigarettes. I was afraid of strangers, of being tied up, gagged, and bruised like the pretty girls I saw on TV. And though I didn’t understand what it meant; I was afraid of being raped.
The Long Haul
My world is 640 square feet. I spend most days on my bed, propped up by pillows, my legs covered with a wool blanket to stanch the pain. From my windows, all I can see are a row of gingkoes, a dozen condo high-rises, and open sky. On a lucky day, there will be snow, or an orange sunset, or a red-tailed hawk floating on warm currents hunting for prey.
Social work students doing it tough: new study
Led by social work expert Professor Liz Beddoe from Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, the study shows that social work students join nursing, teaching and medical students as people vital to our society who are nevertheless struggling to make ends meet to complete their qualifications
In Memoriam: UConn School of Social Work Professor Alex Gitterman
Professor Alex Gitterman, a highly regarded member of the UConn School of Social Work faculty for more than 20 years, died on March 24, 2024. Dr. Gitterman’s national reputation in the field of social work derived from his many publications and presentations in social work practice areas, including the life model, vulnerability and resilience, mutual aid, and social work education and supervision.
Analysis of social media language using AI models predicts depression severity for white Americans, but not Black Americans
While previous research has indicated that social media language could provide useful information as part of mental health assessments, the findings from this study point to potential limitations in generalizing this practice by highlighting key demographic differences in language used by people with depression.
Push to end poverty for students devoted to the poor
One in five social work undergraduates are withdrawing from study due to financial stress, according to research commissioned by the Australian Council of Heads of Social Work Education (ACHSWE).
Co Armagh mum following social work dream in a bid to help others
Cathy Blevins from Tandragee knew she wanted to be a social worker for years, and as a teenager realised she wanted to give back to the community. However, life got in the way, and she missed out on her opportunity to pursue the career she had dreamed of as an 18-year-old.
Shattered lives, stolen futures: The Jay Review of Criminally Exploited Children
Tens of thousands of children and young people are at risk of being exploited across the UK – groomed, coerced and threatened into a life of violence, criminalisation and abuse. A new approach is needed to end this crisis.
Jacob’s Dream: MAGA meets the Age of Aquarius
Jacob Angeli-Chansley, the man the media has dubbed the QAnon Shaman, had been released from federal custody six weeks before when we met for lunch.
South Korea’s Integrated Approach to Addressing Intimate Partner Violence
Before 2004, IPV victims in South Korea received disjointed care, having to separately visit hospitals, law enforcement offices, and legal offices. That began to change in 2003, after a high-profile case involving a four-year-old girl made it a national priority to establish immediate, effective, and comprehensive emergency care in cases of sexual assault. A year later, the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family began establishing Sunflower Centers across the country to provide rapid and comprehensive physical and mental health care in cases of sexual assault, domestic violence, or sex trafficking, including specialized support for children and people with disabilities.
Can This Forgotten Anti-Poverty Progam Be Saved?
TANF was born of the “welfare reform” movement in the 1990s, a cross-partisan endeavor embraced by the likes of Democratic President Bill Clinton and Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. It replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, which grew from the expansive social service policies established in the New Deal. The AFDC was a federal entitlement program that reimbursed states for a portion spent on cash assistance.
Minneapolis at forefront of alternatives to policing, mental health crisis response
On a warmer-than-usual February night in Minneapolis, a nurse dialed 911 because one of her patients sounded disoriented or inebriated. The 911 dispatcher didn’t forward the welfare check to police like she would have done just a few years before, but sent it to the Minneapolis Behavioral Crisis Response team — otherwise known as BCR.
Your brain can reveal if you’re rightwing – plus three other things it tells us about your politics
The approach is called neuropolitics and uses brain science to understand our politics. It applies the insights of neurology to explain why we take part in protests, vote for particular parties and even why we lie about our true feelings in opinion polls, potentially skewing the results to give the public a false impression of who is going to win.
Arizona GOP Bill Would Stifle Faculty Power in Governance
The legislation, nearing passage, would bolster the power of presidents and regents while reducing faculty members to merely “consulting” on governing, academic and personnel decisions.
Attack of the Corporations: Are the NLRB’s Days Numbered?
Meanwhile, Starbucks’ CEO was on Hillary Clinton’s list to be Labor Secretary if she won the white house in 2016. That tells you all you need to know about HRC – eager to nominate a labor nemesis to run the department supposedly dedicated to labor’s welfare – namely, that she’s as anti-union as the GOP. I mean, in what universe is Starbucks billionaire Howard Schultz considered any better for your average worker than that GOP darling, labor secretary and wife of Mitch “Democracy’s Gravedigger” McConnell, Elaine Chao? They both are lousy choices to to head an agency entrusted with labor’s well-being and prove that many Dems along with the entire GOP learned a core lesson from Ronald “Fire the Air Traffic Controllers” Reagan: always put the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
Drawing Young People Out of Social Isolation in South Korea
Why vast numbers of young Koreans are experiencing extreme social withdrawal, and how to help them re-engage with society.
Goma Refugee Camp Project Update: Training Complete, Construction Begins
The initiative, run by Association Nationale Travailleurs sociaux, kicked off with a week-long training program for volunteer social workers. These social workers will play a crucial role in assisting the displaced population.
They’re Not Cops. They Don’t Have Guns. But They’re Responding to More 911 Calls.
Alternative responder programs are closely related strategies in which social workers or behavioral health specialists show up to calls instead of police officers. These teams only respond to calls with a low probability of violence, and many engage in proactive work as well, trying to connect people with behavioral health challenges to services outside the context of a crisis. Above: Crisis responder Chris Jones, left, talks with a community member in Washington.
The Importance of Social Class as a Power Category Besides Race and Gender to Understand What is Going on in the US
Based on all these facts, it should be evident that social class is a critical variable in understanding what has been happening in the U.S. The enormous limitations of social rights and labor rights, as well as the very limited democracy in their representative institutions, are based primarily on the immense power of the corporate class, much greater than in any other major democratic country, and the overwhelming weakness of the working class, the weakest in any major democratic country. The lack of attention to this reality in the political media and academic institutions is precisely a consequence of their dominance by the corporate class.
Want to Fight Climate Change? Fix Housing
Two of the most acute crises facing Canadians are housing and climate change. These are usually treated as separate issues, to be raised in different conversations. That’s a mistake. Climate and housing are vitally connected, and acknowledging this turns a pair of calamities into one huge opportunity.
BASW Launches Manifesto for Social Work
BASW sets out key asks of UK Political Parties ahead of a General Election being called this year.
How the Welfare State Fails the Poor
Arlo Washington in the Oscar-nominated short documentary The Barber of Little Rock
Inside the collapse of the Tavistock Centre
The Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) was the creation of the child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Domenico Di Ceglie. Inspired by a single case he’d worked on in the early 1980s of a teenager “who was claiming that she was a boy but in a female body”, he felt children with “these rare and unusual experiences” needed a service of their own. The focus of Gids was never on changing a young person’s gender identity, but in supporting them and their families in whatever solution they settled on to best manage it.
Social workers protest proposal to increase visit frequency
Su Chao-ju (front row, second left), head of the MOHW’s Social Assistance and Social Work Department, receives the petitions from the demonstrating social workers in Taipei Wednesday.
Factbox-‘Bloodbath,’ ‘vermin,’ ‘animals’: Trump’s rhetoric on the trail
Here are some of Trump’s more controversial statements to date
Academics adrift after Hong Kong passes new security law
In a recent statement UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk pointed to serious concerns about the incompatibility of many of the new law’s provisions with international human rights law. “This ambiguity [in the law] is deeply troubling, given its potential misuse and arbitrary application, including to target dissenting voices, journalists, researchers, civil society actors and human rights defenders. As we have already seen, such provisions readily lead to self-censorship and chilling of legitimate speech and conduct, in respect of matters of public interest on which open debate is vital,” he concluded.
U. of Florida Investigates Whether Professors ‘Interfered’ With Western-Civ Center
The University of Florida is investigating whether a half-dozen professors in its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences “interfered” with a Western-civilization center’s ability to establish its curriculum “or otherwise fulfill its mission,” according to an internal email obtained by The Chronicle. At least one department chair was also asked by the dean’s office to sign a letter affirming that his department believes the center’s curriculum “will provide a unique opportunity for students … and will complement our department’s offerings nicely.”
New CDC Data Reveals ‘National Embarrassment’ of For-Profit Healthcare
The United States is the only developed nation in the world without guaranteed universal healthcare. “We must keep making the point that profit-driven healthcare is not only worse for patients—it’s a national embarrassment,” Kemp added. “Our leaders must act to kick insurance companies to the curb and enact Medicare for All now”…. While opponents—including U.S. lawmakers who take substantial donations from the for-profit healthcare and insurance industry—often argue that Medicare for All would be too expensive, a 2020 Congressional Budget Office analysis found that such a program would save between $300 billion and $650 billion annually.
When Did Everyone Get So ‘Dysregulated’? How managing our mental health became a matter of monitoring our nervous systems.
What is wrong with you?” is a rich and open question. When it comes from other people, it is “aggressive” or “rude,” but when you pose it to yourself, it is endlessly fascinating. What is wrong with you? For better or for worse, a buffet of terminology has emerged that might help explain your terminal unease. Maybe you are struggling with boundaries or your social circle is overrun with toxic people. Maybe your mother or roommate or ex-boyfriend is a narcissist. Maybe you are traumatized, which is perhaps one reason you are also anxiously attached. The problem with these words, of course, is that their impact fades with use, leaving us to hunt for new language that can justify our suffering. By early 2024, we seem to have landed on our latest favorite diagnosis: Have you considered the possibility that you might be dysregulated?
Daily Methadone Clinic Dosing Creates Rural Transportation Nightmare
She also spoke powerfully of her nightmarish challenge of securing daily transportation, when her clinic requires her to attend six days a week to dose. This continually complicates her family life, and leaves her feeling frustrated and punished. Other people at her clinic face similar circumstances. In a perverse Catch-22, the unreliability of her transportation prevents her from “earning” the take-home doses that would reduce her reliance on that transportation.
Workers, such as these construction workers in the Athens summer, need compensation for loss of wages so they do not have to work in extreme heat
Workers, such as these construction workers in the Athens summer, need compensation for loss of wages so they do not have to work in extreme heat
Income assistance program for vulnerable Albertans lacks oversight, auditor general finds
Alberta’s auditor general, Doug Wylie, flips through his latest report, which examines the performance of post-secondary institutions and the government’s income support program.
Closed Book Stores, Canceled Shows: A Sad Silence Descends on Hong Kong
As China wraps its authoritarian rule more tightly around this once-boisterous metropolis, no corner of society has been left untouched. Bookstores are closing, shows have been canceled and opposition to the government—once a rallying force—is now mostly whispered between friends behind closed doors.
Edmonton ends temporary gap funding for Bissell Centre, Boyle Street Community Services
Both organizations, which work to support unhoused populations across Edmonton, had been using the money to operate day shelters with extended hours in the winter to provide a place to stay for those experiencing homelessness.
Why Utah brought ‘one of the strictest sanctions’ possible against this hospital
After nearly three years of documenting serious issues at Highland Ridge Hospital, Utah licensing officials recently took what they say is “one of the strictest sanctions” it can against the 83-bed psychiatric hospital.
New California Court for the Mentally Ill Tests a State’s Liberal Values
To confront the crises of homelessness and mental illness, California has passed new laws that critics say could violate the civil liberties of those suffering on the streets. Some families welcome the new measures.
How much stress is too much? A psychiatrist explains the links between toxic stress and poor health − and how to get help
A 2023 study of stress and aging over the life span – one of the first studies to confirm this piece of common wisdom – found that four measures of stress all speed up the pace of biological aging in midlife. It also found that persistent high stress ages people in a comparable way to the effects of smoking and low socioeconomic status, two well-established risk factors for accelerated aging.
UK’s highest student loan debt exceeds £230,000, new figures show
Undergraduate loans are typically only made to those doing their first higher education qualification, but some courses – including medicine, social work and dentistry – offer exceptions to this rule.
As economy looks up, can Sri Lanka revive its social welfare programme?
Two years after a financial meltdown sparked mass protests and brought down the federal government, the island nation is in much better shape, though major challenges remain.
‘Poof, it’s Gone’: University DEI Dissolution Leaves a Void on Texas Campuses
“One of the big problems that seems to be happening with implementation is what I would call the over-implementation,” Dr. Karma Chávez, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told her university’s student newspaper. “They have sort of enabled a culture in which people are confused about how far SB 17 actually reaches. I think that’s really unfortunate because it’s meant that SB 17 has had far more damage than the bill itself would have because of the interpretation.”
A deeper look into Iowa Gov. Reynolds’ proposed mental health system realignment
Staffed inpatient psychiatric beds scarce across Iowa:
Iowa has 905 liscensed inpatient psychiatric beds, but according to January 2024 totals only 686 of those inpatient beds are staffed currently. Only 75 percent of the state’s inpatient psychiatric beds are staffed currently. Also, 81 of Iowa’s 99 counties don’t have any inpatient psychiatric hospital beds.
Minnesota Budget Proposes $15 Million to Overhaul Dysfunctional Computer System Tracking Child Welfare Cases
In a budget proposal released Monday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz proposed $15 million be spent on an overhaul of antiquated case management software.
Inside Texas’ ‘manipulative’ adoption marketing campaign that targets young women and teen girls
Since Texas banned virtually all abortions, Texans may have seen a rosy message about adoption pop up on their phone screens or dot the view on their daily commute. It might read something like this:
Adoption helps “empower” women and allows them to be “in control” of their future.
Suicide prevention efforts focus on historically Black institutions
UNC Charlotte researcher Dr. Sonyia Richardson speaks about her work focused on developing and testing novel interventions aimed at reducing suicide among Black youth. She sat on a panel discussing the issue with Keon Lewis, a board member for the North Carolina chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Woman who ended life at Dignitas leaves video urging change in UK assisted dying laws
Paola Marra, the 53-year-old from London who took her own life at Dignitas in Switzerland on Wednesday, has urged the public and politicians to help change the law on assisted dying in a posthumous video. In a clip filmed before she flew to Zurich this week, Marra, who had had terminal bowel cancer since 2021, said: “As you watch this, I am dead. But you watching this could help change the laws around assisted dying.”
Increased home visits not a solution: social workers
Taipei Social Workers Union vice chairperson Shen Yao-yi (沈曜逸) presented the unions’ five demands: conduct a comprehensive review of the case instead of using social workers to mend rifts in the social safety net; invite social worker representatives to join the ministry’s review meetings; revoke plans to increase home visitations; enhance social workers’ occupational safety; and ensure reasonable salaries and working conditions for social workers.
Huge allocations for housing, addiction, homelessness promise to help Oregon combat its crises. Will your town benefit?
Lawmakers allocated $4 million for five Oregon universities to boost their behavioral health workforce education programs, which educators say is critical to help the state meet the urgent need for more workers in the field. Portland State University, which will receive a third of that funding, will use the money to hire faculty, develop new courses, support community agency workers who will supervise students and provide tuition support, according to Dr. Junghee Lee, interim dean of Portland State’s School of Social Work (above).
Feeling apathetic? There may be hope
“We have developed a method that can help people develop greater persistence and belief in their ability to achieve their goals,” says Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU’s) Department of Psychology. The key is to tap into our hidden innate potential.