news February 2008 archives
February 29, 2008
B Gaither | Register Mail
Amy Massey didn’t bring home second-hand tales of grief after two days of counseling on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.The social worker, who has been with Community Hospices of America for five years, didn’t say if she heard morbid or tragic stories from students.
AUTHOR Anthony Burgess once wrote that incidents of evil could not always be explained by a shortage of social workers.
The meeting held in the Social Work Auditorium featured a four-member panel of American Indians from several tribes who shared various links to the U. Each spoke of the pain from being raised as an American Indian in a "white man's world." The speakers also focused on education and shared some insights on their own tribes.
Karen Boyce-Dawson, of Dosh, said some individuals can receive up to £600 a week in individual payments to hire carers and benefits to cover rent and living costs. Yet often financial advice was being offered by social workers or carers with no financial training. Dosh's planned solution was a code of practice for financial advocacy.
Image | Saint Louis University
Robotic dogs worked just as well as real dogs in easing loneliness and fostering attachments in a nursing home setting.
The United Nations warned that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a "new face of hunger".
B Matlock
Social Worker Nancy Sherrod met with one of her clients on Tuesday morning.
Radio Rookie Shirley “Star” Diaz is on the brink of aging out of the foster care system when she turns 21 this fall.Many young people face huge challenges when they leave the system.
NJ PARISI
UB School of Social Work student Jordan McCarthy watches a talent show at the Edward Saunders Community Center with girls participating in the School of Social Work’s DREAM Program.
iStockphoto | A Murillo
Why do we almost instinctively treat babies as special, protecting them and enabling them to survive?
More needs to be done to protect vulnerable adults in Cornwall, according to a draft report.
February 28, 2008
Research has cast doubt on the clinical benefit of new generation anti-depressants like Prozac and Seroxat. Here, two BBC News website readers reflect on their experience of depression.
AFP
Plan International, the aid agency in Mansehra which was attacked by armed men, February 25 2008.
CBS | EARLY SHOW
Pet rabbit of the Sebastians, a foster family for animals
US: More Elderly Americans Living With Heart Failure, But Heart Failure Declining Among Very Elderly
Tribune | V Reutov
The boom in Moscow belies the deep problems in Russia's Siberia and Far East, where many cities are dying a slow, quiet death. Natalya Chursina (left) and her husband, who live in the Far East city of Amursk, feed and clothe their teenage son, Zhenya (right), on welfare payments that amount to $5 a day. Chursina desperately wants Zhenya to escape Amursk. "People die like flies here," she says.
President Lula
The Brazilian government has unveiled a multi-billion dollar anti-poverty plan to provide jobs and infrastructure in the poorest parts of the country.
Brazil is marked by deep divisions between rich and poor
An estimated 63,000 pupils truanted every day, equating to 1% of all school sessions missed without a valid reason.
British people perceive themselves to be much slimmer around the waist than they really are, research shows.
Anti-depressant prescription rates have soared. A University of Hull team concluded the drugs actively help only a small group of the most severely depressed.
February 27, 2008
P Binder
Krystal VanHook
iStockphoto | L Pedrosa
A new study on effects of mobile phone radiation on human skin strengthens the results of the human cell line analyses: living tissue responds to mobile phone radiation.
Image | DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans showing the effect of cocaine on brain metabolism in mice with normal levels of dopamine transporter proteins (DAT +/+) and mice lacking dopamine transporters (DAT -/-). Cocaine was compared with saline treatment (vehicle). Cocaine use blunted whole brain metabolism in both groups of mice (indicated by a reduced amount of yellow visible on the cocaine images), and had a particularly significant effect on the thalamus (TH) in DAT -/- mice. These results indicate that cocaine affects the brain in ways not modulated by its blockade of dopamine transporter proteins.
Nangok in 2001, a small hilly area in Sillim-dong, Gwanak District, one of the poorest slums in Seoul.
Homelessness has a true ‘Mauritian face’. In the “Abri de nuit”, the homeless can get a hot meal, take a bath and get a decent place to sleep for the night as well as medical facilities.
LM Alvarez
An electronic device is shown at the Juvenile Justice Center Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008, in Miami. Florida's child welfare caseworkers will soon be testing handheld GPS devices to electronically update case information during home visits. Caseworkers currently use a paper form to record home visits, then type the information into a state database when they return to the office. But cases aren't always updated promptly. Officials say the handheld devices could speed up that process and help track files.
Thirteen-year-old RJ
With a wonderful imagination and great sense of humor, 13-year-old RJ is an energetic and polite Caucasian boy who easily engages in conversation with others. Proud of his accomplishments both in school and at his foster home, RJ describes himself as “loveable” and says that he is “nice to most people.”
MS WIRTZ | Inquirer
At home at last, Runell McKnight plays with her children. They are beneficiaries of a new emphasis on finding homes first, then providing services.
‘CRAIG’: ‘People don’t realise it could happen to them tomorrow and it could happen overnight’
February 26, 2008
Social workers could be based in city schools within a year in a bid to help kids affected by drug and alcohol problems. Some pupils' parents are trying to come off heroin by using methadone
D Koontz
Johnsville artist Margaret Dowell’s painting “Letting Go” is being used to encourage artists to send in entries for a forthcoming book and art exhibition on addiction and recovery.
One training session in New York City's Washington Heights area is tailored to Hispanic women. The stylists are taught to look for clues like bruises and missing patches of hair, or signs of being controlled and isolated. They learn how to gently guide distressed women to seek help.
A Houston | NY Times
Darryle D. Schoepp has helped develop new drugs for treating schizophrenia, relying on a novel approach for combating some symptoms of the disorder.
Ali Askar had a sex change operation and is now called Negar. Homosexual relationships are banned in Iran, but the country allows sex change operations and hundreds of men have elected for surgery to change their lives.
Dr. John Seita, Associate Professor of Social Work at Michigan State University
Spartan Podcast featuring Dr. Seita
Campaigners are calling for social networking websites, such as Facebook and MySpace, to clamp down on pro-anorexia sites.
In 1999 Sweden outlawed paying for sex. Anyone who is caught is liable for a fine or a six-month prison sentence. The Swedish government says there has been a decrease in street prostitution, kerb crawling and the number of women entering the trade.
February 25, 2008
Duong Thi Ban, a retired nurse and a parishioner of Tan Viet, tries to help these children, who contracted the HIV virus in their mother's womb.
R Hamilton
David Carte, a local advocate for the homeless, is trying to get community support for a men's homeless shelter he started more than a year ago in his own home located at 1207 Parker Ave. Carte addressed city council members earlier this week, telling them of a dire need for help for the down-and-out.
Drs. Mark Mayford and Naoki Matsuo, Scripps Research Institute
UK: 'Easy targets' for predators
"She was a human being first and foremost - she was not born to be a prostitute" Alice Wilson
-- A man has been convicted of murdering five women in Ipswich. He is the latest in a long line of killers who have targeted prostitutes. Could the police be doing more to protect prostitutes and catch their killers?
iStockphoto
A new nationally representative study shows a downward trend in the rate of "cognitive impairment" -- the umbrella term for everything from significant memory loss to dementia and Alzheimer's disease -- among people aged 70 and older.
US: Cold, Unfeeling Traits Linked to Distinctive Brain Patterns in Kids with Severe Conduct Problems
N Wegard | NY Times
TIES Kerry Keane and his wife, Liane Thatcher, with their children, Phelan, 6, and Tallulah, 2 ½ months, at home in New Jersey recently.
JC Horton | AP
Gov. Martin O'Malley has proposed bills to fill gaps in care.
Llanelli's Polish centre says help must be available for migrant workers who come to Wales but end up homeless. The hut the three men were living in has been burnt out.
February 22, 2008
Study finds 30% risk reduction when felines are in the home.
Enrollment Marketing
Masami Morigami, a 2002 graduate of Gallaudet’s Master’s in Social Work program, discusses her international development work with social work students.
AJ JACKSON | Detroit Free Press
Anna Dexter-Cheeks, 21, discusses biology at Kalamazoo Valley Community College on Wednesday. Dexter-Cheeks, a former foster child, is helping to set up a support program with other ex-foster kids at Western Michigan University.
M Broersma
Nepotism is no laughing matter in social care settings, where the resulting conflicts of interest can lead to bad practice being covered up and, at worst, abusive environments developing unchecked.
C South | Herald Photo
The Michigan Youth Opportunities Initiative is a Department of Human Services program -- one of only two in Michigan -- that serves foster youth who age out of the styem on their 18th birthday. Some of the people involved in both helping and listening to these young people are, clockwise from bottom left, Marco Dedenbach, community partnership coordinator, Brenda Kalchik, youth coordinator, Shawn Semelsberger, a student intern and youth advocate, and Michael Pavlov, Family to Family coordinator.
Photo | WBOC
Virginia Sharp has been a champion of foster care for more than four decades.
Opposition Leader Yvonne Jones has written the Child and Youth Advocate officially requesting a complete review of the province's foster care system.
B DURGIN | SALINAS CALIFORNIAN
Elvia Jimenez, left, practices her part in 'Rebirth.'
UK: Ex-offenders struggle with homelessness
Photo | PA
Report says 'vulnerable people are being failed by a number of services'
Brittany Gilbert of Albany, a youth representative on the provincial advisory committee reviewing the Child Protection Act, hopes to help improve the system for other young people in care.
February 21, 2008
Sperm defects caused by exposure to environmental toxins can be passed down the generations, research suggests.
Courtesy
City health and welfare officials are putting together the revolutionary plan, which is aimed at preventing the social damage caused by addicts trying to obtain money to buy the illicit drugs.
Martha Walton feeds her hens outside her home in Raleigh, N.C. Walton had trouble coping with with depression due to pain from her lasik surgery.
The quest to live longer is one of humanity's oldest dreams and three isolated communities seem to have stumbled across the answer. So what can they teach us about a longer life?