Australia's economic prosperity and record low unemployment have heralded good times for many, but a new study shows that the number of Australians living below the poverty line has grown substantially in the past decade.
Reuters | T Wimborne

David and Ida Frankel have been married for 73 years. Ida developed Alzheimer's disease and is among the first to receive a microchip containing her medical information. (ABC News)

"Nowadays, the traditional practice of old people being 'cared for by their children' is no longer a suitable solution for contemporary society. The newer idea of 'having property to support one's later life' may work but it cannot solve the fundamental aging problem," said Liu Yunhua, deputy secretary-general of the Welfare Service Work Commission for the Aged People, affiliated with the China Association of Social Workers.

Dr. Barry Sarvet (left) and Dr. John Straus are both involved in the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project, which provides consultations to doctors working with children.
(N Palmieri | Boston Globe)

Gov. Ernie Fletcher was one of the speakers during the opening day of the Kentucky Summit on Children.

This online Disproportionate Minority Contact Technical Assistance Manual, 3rd Edition, provides detailed guidance on DMC identification and monitoring, assessment, intervention, and evaluation. Its intended audience is Juvenile Justice Specialists, members of State Planning Agencies and State Advisory Groups, DMC researchers and consultants, and policymakers and practitioners involved in the juvenile justice system at the state and local levels. This manual incorporates lessons learned in DMC efforts over the years. It brings states and localities the latest information and tools for understanding and effectively addressing minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system.

When Jade Saunders was released from prison aged 17 she was given £50, taken to a hostel and left to sort out her life

About 700 mental health workers are on strike in Manchester in protest at the suspension of a shop steward.

Sanga Amaj is one of the few women-only clinics in the country

The anti-drugs message at the clinic is kept clear and simple

'Drugs kill' is the simple but effective message

Images highlighting the dangers of smoking will be printed on all tobacco products sold in the UK by the end of 2009, under regulations being set out.

ISTOCKPHOTO | K MONAKHOVA

BABY FAT: A new study shows that pregnant women who develop gestational diabetes have a greater risk of having obese children, but that they can greatly reduce the chances of obesity by treating the disease.

Too many teenagers are damaging their health by not getting enough sleep and by falling asleep with electrical gadgets on, researchers say.

Thousands of people in Scotland could be paying for their healthcare when the NHS should be footing the bill, a BBC investigation has found.

A new survey of Sept. 11-related illnesses has found an alarming increase in asthma - 12 times higher than normal - among those who toiled on the toxic debris piles of ground zero.

The United Nations says opium production in Afghanistan has "soared to frightening record levels" with an increase on last year of more than a third.

VULNERABLE: With so many children in Scotland living with drug addicts, the work of the panel is vitally important to ensure youngsters' welfare remains the priority. Picture posed by model

Raven Hamlett cries over sons' sex abuse

It is hoped the Foundation Phase will create around 2,300 assistants

Kala Clark, center, helped get a law passed to give foster children visitation rights with their siblings. (CBS)

"We're not saying, by any stretch of the imagination, that breaking up is a good time, or that people enjoy it -- a breakup is a distressing experience for most people, " explained the study's lead author, Paul W. Eastwick, a doctoral candidate in Northwestern University's department of psychology. "But what we're talking about is how upset people are going to be. And it turns out that it's not nearly as catastrophic as people predict."

Ronald Rabold, MSW

The body assessing new therapies and drugs for the NHS could be approving too many treatments, a report has said.

SPECIAL
U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek (left), D-Fla., and Tyler Bacon of Jacksonville meet last month before a Congressional hearing on children who "age out" of the foster care system.

K Hare | The Enquirer
Brian Gerber receives a friendly bop on the nose from 6-month-old Malachi. Brian and Kim Gerber are planning to adopt him

Seung-Hui Cho

Trash is strewn on Friday at the front entrance of the building where Mayor Sam Sullivan lives in Yaletown.
G Baglo | Vancouver Sun

This mural of passenger pigeons, painted during the Depression, is in the lobby of the Dennison post office. The mural depicts a flock of passenger pigeons flying across a lake toward a forest. It reflects the growing concern for conservation during the ’30s. Passenger pigeons, once estimated to number in the billions in the eastern United States, were hunted to extinction during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The last passenger pigeon died at a Cincinnati zoo in 1914.

Travelling on Afghanistan's main Jalalabad to Torkham road, you eventually arrive at Shaddle Bazaar, a market of around 30 shops in the eastern province of Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan. At first glance, it looks like any other normal market offering everyday goods. But in reality, this is one of Afghanistan's biggest opium markets.

Elyn R. Saks
As a student at Yale Law School, Elyn Saks urged two students in her study group to follow her out onto the library roof, where she began to bellow a nonsense song. She wasn't just fooling around, nor was she high on drugs. Saks is a schizophrenic and that night her demons were in control.

View image re: Uninsured rolls rising

The experiments, described in the Science journal, offer a scientific explanation for a phenomenon experienced by one in 10 people. Two teams used virtual reality goggles to con the brain into thinking the body was located elsewhere.

J GRIFFIN/Daily News
House on Clearfield St. near D where boy was found in squalid cellar.

Anne Crane cares for seven foster children, all aboriginal. She believes placing native foster children with aboriginal families is vital for proper development of the youngsters
(CBC)

Sjur Agdestein claims social welfare agency NAV demanded full insight into medical records of 11 of his patients. Now he regrets ever giving them out, claiming it endagers patients' safety.
J ARNT NESGÅRD | TRØNDER-AVISA

MIAMI HERALD FILE
Hank Selinger became a social worker after leaving The Miami Herald.

Thousands of council workers in Edinburgh have taken part in a one-day strike in protest at threatened cuts and redundancies.

Photo | GABNet
Rally for rights | A GABNet supporter calls for the release of Annalisa Enrile and her two colleagues at a GABNet-organized vigil.

Carlson comes to ASU from the University at Albany, State University of New York’s School of Social Welfare, where she has been teaching since 1979.

A council has taken steps to curb the use of memorials in public areas following complaints that they have been sending out a depressing message.

A sign for a sex worker in a window in Soho, London.
Photo | D Chung

Tamara Martin wipes a tear as she talks about living in the gutted family home as she struggled with being homeless in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, July 19, 2007. Across New Orleans, a homeless population that has nearly doubled since Hurricane Katrina is squatting in the ruins of the storm. (AP | A Brandon)

Pat McGinn: "My family were living with a nightmare"

Jillynn Stevens, a native Utahn and former welfare recipient. Stevens now lives in New York City, having parlayed her graduate degrees into work as an advocate for fair social welfare policies. (Photo provided by the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, where Stevens works.)

Pedestrian, 77, was social work pioneer

Troublemakers causing or contributing to alcohol-related crime or disorder can be excluded from places such as a town centre or village green for up to 48 hours by police, under a new power coming into force today.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell signs “An Act Concerning the Protection of Pets in Domestic Violence Cases” at a ceremony at the Connecticut Humane Society in Newington.

Is it really goodbye to the student union bar, and hello to mango energisers and campus gyms? Jennifer Huseman and Ashley McAlister enjoy the juice bar at the University of London union.
G Turner

Rick Miller, a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles tribe of Wisconsin, works alongside a staff member of EcoNest, a New Mexico-based sustainable design and building firm, loading a specially designed hopper to produce material for a straw/clay structure. The team is building two model homes at Lac Courte Oreilles, near Hertel, Wis., that demonstrate design techniques that are both environmentally friendly and affordable. The project is part of a course on green design taught by Sue Thering, a UW-Madison assistant professor of landscape architecture. (D Finnegan)

N-J | D Circelli
A $1.6 million donation to the Stewart-Marchman Center will help fund The Vince Carter Sanctuary and another building, named after Carter's mother, Michelle Carter-Scott, at right.

CAPE employees, from left, Paula Shutz, playing the role of Yohan Yarrow, a 7-year-old with ADHD; Diane Wilkerson, playing the role of 15-year-old Lily Locke; Anna Guesthill, playing the role of Rita Rogers, a 20-year-old college student and young mother; and Wendy Horne, playing the role of 15-year-old Mandy Morris, argue with a teacher at "Realville Public School" during poverty simulation exercises.

Barbara Pritchett is comforted by her cousin Donny Joubert at a vigil in June to remember her son, Dovon Harris, 16, who was fatally shot. In L.A. County, the homicide rate for black men is 176 deaths per 100,000 people. The national rate, regardless of race, is six per 100,000.
(B VanderBrug | LAT)