News (2,096 posts)

For Hong Kong and Taiwan, neoliberalism’s falling tides made political repression inevitable.

World War II reorganized the economy and geography of the United States. By the 1940s, pushed by Jim Crow and pulled by employment in war industries, more than six million Black people relocated to urban centers. US government guest-worker programs also spurred immigration from Central and South America—a fair-weather reversal of the deportation project that had ejected two million Mexicans just a decade before. LA’s population of Black residents nearly doubled. But interlocking real estate exclusions restricted the places Black and Brown people could live to just five percent of the area of the city.

“Imagine being trapped in your bathroom for weeks on end!” says XX. “That’s what it’s like, since the toilet is right in there with you. But it’s worse, because you’re trapped in this tiny space with another individual. No time outside, no programs, no psychologists making the rounds like they’re supposed to. You pretty much just lie in your bunk all day. I pass my time mostly reading, but that gets old after a while. So, you jump off the bunk, walk around the cell a little, do a few push-ups and then jump back on the bunk. Over and over again.”

MH sifts through paperwork from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission at her home in Texas.

Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has welcomed the publication of a report on Northern Ireland’s strategy for the prevention of suicide and self-harm.

Hong Kong students and university faculty previously accustomed to academic freedom must now tread carefully to avoid retribution for what they teach, research and publish – and even with whom they associate – according to a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on academic freedom in the city since the 2020 National Security Law was imposed by Beijing. The law prohibits “secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces” to endanger national security but definitions of what constitutes such offences are vague.

A mural by graffiti artist Eme Freethinker depicting German chancellor Olaf Scholz after the country legalised recreational cannabis use on 3 April 2024.

As a social worker, Hoa has sat down with dozens of victims of domestic violence…. Hoa works at a women’s shelter in southern Vietnam. She asked that a nickname be used and her place of work concealed due to the sensitivity of domestic violence in the country.

The troubling trend of despair and fatigue among those who work for environmental and climate change — a phenomenon described as ‘climate burnout’ — could jeopardise vital commitment to the cause. New Flinders University research explored the exacerbating and attenuating factors of despair-induced climate burnout to learn how people can overcome despair and maintain motivation to fight climate change.

The Farmer-Labor Party was part of a movement that spanned rural and urban areas in Minnesota to fight corporate greed and provide mutual aid. It was the state’s strongest alternative to the two-party system until 1944, when it merged with Democrats to create the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party that Minnesotans know today. “This place was always a flashing beacon for progressives,” says David Bednarczuk…. who lives in Hibbing. When he joined the cooperative in the 1970s, he was one of the first members who did not speak Finnish. Part of a new generation of antiwar environmentalists, he helped reenergize the park after what he called a ​“lost generation” of members were subjected to FBI surveillance and political repression during the McCarthy era

Above: Uniformed members of Trail Life USA present the colors at the Family Research Council’s 2018 Values Voter Summit.

Research shows that medications for opioid use disorder — buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone — reduce opioid use, prevent overdose deaths, and support long-term recovery. Among people who were formerly incarcerated, access to these medications during incarceration or at release has been shown to reduce overdose deaths, increase use of community-based treatment(link is external), and decrease rates of reincarceration(link is external). However, access to medications for opioid use disorder in jails remains limited due to various barriers, including cost, staffing, and regulatory challenges.

Dozens of service providers, advocates, and affordable housing organizations signed onto a letter Wednesday calling on the Republican governor to take executive action to halt the evictions of hundreds of vulnerable households from motels and hotels across the state, including families with children, elderly people, and people with severe disabilities. Above: T and her daughters prepared to leave… as their emergency housing voucher expired.

All under 18s who were previously detained in YOI Polmont have now been moved into secure care settings. New regulations came into force on 28 August and as of that date, there will be no new admissions of children under 18 to YOIs.

An international rights NGO has invited Hong Kong’s government to clarify what it called “fabricated content” in a report published by the NGO that noted there had been a “severe decline” in academic freedom in Hong Kong since the enactment of a security law in 2020. Above: Central Government Offices in Admiralty, Hong Kong.

Researchers say that parents and doctors should be mindful of how they talk to and treat children experiencing pain — no matter how big or small the injury — knowing that these foundational experiences can be carried forward into adulthood.

A new look into addiction treatment availability in the U.S. criminal justice system reveals that fewer than half (43.8%) of 1,028 jails surveyed across the nation offered any form of medication for opioid use disorder, and only 12.8% made these available to anyone with the disorder.

There were no words, just devastation. As we texted, I was trying not to picture what it looked like inside of Apalachee.

The recommended target dose for buprenorphine in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approved labeling is 16 mg per day. Researchers found that those taking higher daily doses of buprenorphine (>16 to 24 mg) took 20% longer to have a subsequent emergency department or inpatient health care visit related to behavioral health within the first year after receiving treatment, compared to those receiving >8 to 16 mg a day. Those taking daily doses of more than 24 mg of buprenorphine went 50% longer before having a subsequent emergency or inpatient health care visit related to behavioral health within the first year after receiving treatment, compared to those receiving >8 to 16 mg a day.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s children’s services had been branded inadequate by Ofsted just months before Ronnie Higginson’s death

An Australian study from this year found that more than half of 18- to 35-year-olds reported they had been strangled during sex at least once. A similar proportion admitting to strangling a partner at least once. Though strangling is common among both men and women, evidence shows that women are more likely to be strangled and men more likely to do the strangling.

Using MRI scans of almost 1,000 Dutch people, researchers show that there is indeed a connection between brain structure and ideology. However, the connection is smaller than expected. Nevertheless, the researchers find it remarkable that differences in the brain are linked to something as abstract as ideology.

New research finds that adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders have high rates of comorbid mental and substance use disorders and significant social and economic disadvantages, and only 26% received minimally adequate treatment. Meeting the needs of people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders will require innovative interventions and implementation to improve access to and use of evidence-based approaches, the authors argue.

Some individuals have a persistent tendency to want ever more stuff and status. Psychologists are examining the lives they lead.

The team began by mapping networks over time in six people with major depression and 37 healthy controls. They found that the salience network, which includes brain regions in the frontal cortex and striatum, was almost twice as large on average in people with depression. This network is involved in reward processing and determining what to pay attention to. The size of the salience network did not change over time in people with or without depression. Nor did it relate to depression symptoms in people with depression.

Preferra Insurance Company RRG has taken the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) to court, accusing the professional body of failing to fulfill its obligations to the social workers insurer.

Professor Ray Jones reflects on a career that has spanned practice, leadership and academia, the need for less specialisation in social work and his role in responding to the ‘Baby P’ case. Above: Ray in the 1970s as a newly qualified social worker

Loneliness has become a worrying public health matter because it is common and is often associated with people experiencing physical and mental health problems. There is now taxpayers’ money being spent at the local, national and international levels on initiatives to minimise loneliness and the harmful effect it can have on people’s health. But are those investments misjudged?

A domestic offender was AWOL at court after social workers recommended he be sent to prison.

The lawsuit a neuroscientist filed earlier this month accuses the six largest academic publishers of colluding to create a business model that diverts money from scientific research “into their pockets.”

Studies show that loneliness is associated with negative health outcomes like elevated levels of heart disease and a higher risk of dementia.

Brenda Rosen, MSW, CSW is the National Association of Social Workers – Kentucky Chapter Executive Director, with 43 years of social work experience, she is passionate about advocating for human rights.

This week, the world’s heads of state are gathering in New York City for the annual United Nations General Assembly. The goal at the very top of the U.N.’s sustainable development agenda is to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere.” Given that all 193 U.N. member countries have pledged to achieve the U.N.’s development goals by 2030, we should expect to hear where the world stands in this critical effort.

The Department of Health and Human Services has published new policies on research misconduct, which apply to research institutions receiving funding through the U.S. Public Health Service. The policies set standards that institutions must follow when investigating and potentially sanctioning researchers alleged to have engaged in research misconduct.

Lynette (far left) with Cheryl Kitchener, Bill McCarthy (NSW member for Northern Tablelands) and John Nalson (Pro Vice Chancellor, UNE) at the opening of Oorala in 1986

Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis are the cofounders of the Los Angeles Tenants Union (LATU), a multilingual formation organizing across the vast sprawl of the city. Situated in multiple organizing histories, LATU organizes to build tenant power and to prefigure a housing system not built on a foundation of extractive and carceral relationships with landlords or the state. Rosenthal and Vilchis have written a radical treatise, Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis, that uses the authors’ organizing experiences with LATU—and one of its predecessors, Union de Vecinos in Boyle Heights—to make an argument for a permanent rent strike; the abolition of rent.

“We have a profound shortage of affordable housing in the state,” said Dr. Nicholas Barr, Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, outside of Siegel Suite flexible-stay apartments in Las Vegas.

Sometimes, the best thing a parent can do is nothing at all.

There are 20 adult social work apprenticeship positions available starting in January 2025. This offers a unique opportunity to study for a fully funded social work degree with the University of East Anglia (UEA) while working for the council. Above: Councillor Richard Howitt, chair of Cambridgeshire’s adults and health committee.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s latest covid bulletin spreads anti-vaccine misinformation by telling Floridians to avoid mRNA vaccines.

For Hawa Lee, pursuing a Master of Applied Social Work was more than just a return to academia. It was a transformative journey that deepened her commitment to helping others and grew her passion for mental health advocacy.

A 9 mm “ghost gun” pistol build kit with a commercial slide and barrel with a polymer frame is displayed in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C. More than a dozen states, including some battleground states, debated and enacted a variety of firearms regulations addressing storage requirements, gun-free zones, bans on firearm purchase tracking and permitless carry.

Childhood trauma can raise the risk of developing major diseases later in life that vary based on a person’s unique experiences and even their sex, new research concludes. Why it matters: Although it’s widely understood that trauma early in life has biological and real-world health impacts, the findings shed light on how different life experiences can shape the way the body functions and make a person susceptible to chronic diseases.

Given these challenges, or at least hefty qualifications, to this presentation of Trump’s white working class base, it is curious that Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol’s Rust Belt Union Blues appears to accept its premise hook line and sinker.

Despite its name, pink cocaine doesn’t necessarily contain any cocaine. Instead, it’s often a mixture of various other substances, including MDMA, ketamine and 2C-B. MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, is a stimulant with psychedelic properties while ketamine is a powerful anaesthetic which has sedative and hallucinogenic effects. 2C drugs are classed as psychedelics but they can also produce stimulant effects.

For their study, the researchers assigned the participants, who all came from different professional sectors, to four groups of roughly equal size. The smartphone group reduced their private smartphone use by one hour a day for one week. The sport group increased their daily physical activity by 30 minutes. The combination group did both, and the control group didn’t change their routine at all. All participants completed online questionnaires before these interventions, immediately afterwards and two weeks after the intervention period ended, providing information about their well-being, both with regard to work and mental health.

One woman’s story of opioid use disorder and joining an NIH clinical trial