The Conversation
President Barack Obama took a significant step on April 9 when he approved a statement supporting state-level bans on “conversion or reparative” therapies for LGBT youth. One part of the statement merits special attention: |
“The overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrates that conversion therapy, especially when it is practiced on young people, is neither medically nor ethically appropriate and can cause substantial harm.”
More than 20 years ago, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) (of which I am the immediate past president) condemned such “treatments,” first in a statement issued in 1992 and updated in 2000. The question now is how Obama’s condemnation can be transformed into policy decisions that effectively end such treatments.
Los Angeles Daily News
Los Angeles County budget officials Monday released a proposed $26.9-billion budget for 2015-16 that would fund about 1,300 additional positions — mostly social workers, sheriff’s deputies and nurses — aimed to reduce caseloads for social workers in the child welfare system, continue reforms for mentally ill inmates and increase access to health care. “This budget is not about recovery any longer, but it’s more about reform in the county,” interim CEO Sachi A. Hamai said at a news conference at the Hall of Administration, the first step in a months-long budget process.
Daniel Kuhn is a member:
New York Magazine
As a result of all this messiness, there’s “mass confusion” about what should and shouldn’t be seen as acceptable behavior among facility administrators, said Daniel Kuhn, a licensed clinical social worker who has conducted trainings on dementia and sex for nursing homes.”Very, very few nursing homes have delved into this topic because it is so darn complicated,” he said. “It touches on the ethical and moral and legal areas, and there’s no hard and fast tools available to make a determination.”
Barbara Longan-Thompson is a member:
[Video] Study Links Facebook To Depression
fourstateshomepage.com (Joplin, MO)
According to the University of Houston, a study shows that people who often visit Facebook, see a highlight reel of everyone’s life. Some can feel inferior with their own life. However, a Joplin therapist says people’s lives on Facebook can be deceptive. “People tend to put the better things about themselves. We look at all the good things about other people’s lives, and we tend to compare those to the negative things about our lives,” said Barbara Longan-Thompson, Clinical Social Worker.
John Moon is a member:
Texas Public Radio
Denial, shame, and guilt surround sex-related traumas, but victims of trafficking are different. They often don’t believe they are victims says John Moon, a licensed clinical social worker for the Mission Roads Center, “They genuinely believed they were in control. They genuinely believed they chose to do this; the insidious nature with which they are seduced, exploited, co-opted into doing the things they have done. And as you strip through those layers you can get to some of the guilt and shame we talked about.”
YouTube
The Pennsylvania House on Tuesday passed a resolution by a vote of 199-0 recognizing NASW’s 60th Anniversary. Watch this video from Democratic Rep. Dan Frankel thanking the House for the resolution. Frankel’s wife and daughter are members of NASW. And congratulations to NASW’s Pennsylvania Chapter for this accomplishment!
Foreclosure Victims Call For Alternative Spending Plan
Delaware Online
About 30 people attended a rally in Wilmington hosted by the newly-created Victims Stand Against Foreclosure Everywhere, a grassroots organization for those hurt since the 2008 housing crisis.… VSAFE is led by Community Housing and Empowerment Connections Inc., the National Association of Social Workers Delaware Chapterand Minority Workforce Development Coalition.
Santa Fe New Mexican
Gov. Susana Martinez signed a bill Wednesday that is designed to increase the number of social workers in key state jobs by establishing a repayment program for their student loans. It would be funded by a $450,000 appropriation that is contained in the state budget, which Martinez is considering as a separate bill. Reps. Jimmie Hall, R-Albuquerque, and Doreen Gallegos, D-Las Cruces, sponsored the measure for the loan repayment program, House Bill 341. “This is going to help with retention and recruitment” of social workers, Hall said in a phone interview. “Something helping kids is about as bipartisan a bill as you can have.”
Social Workers Merit A Higher Value In Society And On Paychecks
The Chronicle of Social Change
March has been National Social Worker Month in this country. I often wonder how unbearable life would be without the skill, commitment, tenacity and hard work of social workers, a position embedded in so many essential activities of our society. They work with children and seniors, the sick and impaired, victims and the exploited, the unemployed and those in recovery, schoolchildren, the dying and the mourning; in hospitals, in schools, in impoverished areas, in remote villages and our metropolitan areas.
Sherry Saturno is a member:
Monday Morning Manager: Sherry Saturno
The Network for Social Work Management
Sherry Saturno, LCSW, DCSW is the Executive Director of the Hudson Valley Care Coalition in New York and a national Social Work Leadership fellowship recipient at New York University Silver School of Social Work. She is a also a documentary filmmaker whose short film, “Human Investment” will be shown at the national American Society on Aging Conference in Chicago this spring.
Maribel Quiala is a member; the article is written in Spanish; in it, Maribel Quiala discusses how parents can best talk to their children about sensitive issues:
Univision
La mayoría de nosotras no dudaríamos en evitar que nuestros hijos se expongan a peligros. Pero al hablar con ellos, las cosas se hacen más difíciles, ya que ciertos temas pueden generarnos dudas y temor. ¿Debemos hablar del tema o no? De acuerdo con Maribel Quiala, trabajadora social y experta en relaciones, a toda edad, los niños recurren a sus padres en busca de respuestas. Al abordar un tema “sensible”, debes crear el ambiente propicio para que pueda expresarse.
For more information about NASW Media Watch, please email knortham@naswdc.org. |
