news May 2008 archives
May 12, 2008
Ministers are warning that England's social care system is heading towards a £6bn funding gap unless there is radical reform, the BBC has learned. Within 20 years a quarter of the adult population will be over 65.
JCP Betancourt | Special to The Examiner
Shameka West, left, will be a resident adviser at a complex the county purchased to house former foster youths.
D BURK | Times-Union
Dave and Michele McKee hold Grace, 4, Joy, 6, and Elizabeth, 16 months, during Friday's adoption ceremony. They adopted Elizabeth and 4-year-old son Samuel (not pictured) in December.
Hans Cohn is married to Stefi, also blind and a Holocaust survivor
May 9, 2008
GOODBYE: Renowned Charles Sturt University rural social researcher Professor Margaret Alston will take up a 12-month position at Monash University in Melbourne
In some cities 14% of pupils are on the margins of persistent truancy
Service users are often angry and with reason. But should professionals ignore it, absorb it or get it off their chest afterwards? Sally Gillen reports on anger management strategies
KTUU-TV
John Callahan says he served in the Navy years ago but is now homeless and looking for a hand.
B Gerbe | AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Austin social worker Terry Secrest, center, talks with lawyer D'Ann Johnson, left, and Johnson's client, Leona Steed, about finding housing for Steed and her five children. 'Usually you know what to expect,' Secrest says, 'but in this case it's so different.'
WWL-TV
Teri Hravbosky and her husband have had more than a dozen foster children come through their home.
The proportion of Asbo breaches has risen, although fewer are being issued
KP Focht | The Commercial Appeal
Becky Hupf has been in a Youth Villages' Transitional Living Program, which helps older teens and young adults who have outgrown state foster care adjust to independent living. Avery Duncan has been working with her for about five years.
F Baron
Four of the five last Henderson residents pictured last month: (left to right) Sadie Oguste, Mark Sommerville, Cathy Boyd and Caroline Thompson.
May 8, 2008
UK: Reefer madness: Do the drug laws work?
Rex
A police officer in a polytunnel at a cannabis farm. Ministers claim the 'skunk' now on sale is much stronger than in the 1970s
Loise Sullivan helped found a self-help center for the homeless.
K MILLER | Missoulian
Camarin Metcalf takes one of her last runs at Blue Mountain before graduating from the University of Montana's School of Social Work this Saturday. Trail-running has been an outlet for Metcalf, helping her stay healthy and on the path to success.
Alcohol misuse is costing Scotland a staggering £2.25 billion - more than double previous estimates - according to figures released today. . . . This is spread over the NHS (£405 million); social work services (£170 million); criminal justice and the fire service (£385 million); wider economic costs (£820 million) and human/social costs (£470 million). And it warns that the new £2.25 billion figure may be a significant underestimate.
Shattered Dreams, A Story of the Streets
A Martin
There are no exact numbers for this largely hidden problem, but anonymous surveys among college students suggest that 17 percent of them have self-injured, and experts estimate that self-injury is practiced by 15 percent of the general adolescent population.
Paranoia is not only experienced by some persons with mental disorders. About 40 percent of the general population experience paranoid thoughts, a British virtual-reality study suggests.
Punitha K.K. Samy is suffering from cancer and tuberculosis
May 7, 2008
G Bowker
Diane Robertson with a model of the design for a centre to house the inner city's homeless.
Courtesy of the Musée de Picardie, Amiens
Albert Maignan's painting of "Green Muse" (1895) shows a poet succumbing to absinthe's mind-altering effects.
M Moran
The Portland Intervention and Early Referral Program in Portland, Maine, is located near Maine Medical Center. The real work of altering the environmental dynamics in the life of an at-risk teenager takes place in multifamily meetings where patients and family members work together to prevent recurrence and create a positive environment.
K Endy
William McFarlane, M.D.: "Our intent in Portland has been to train the entire relevant community to identify every at-risk case."
US: Tarrant County Working Poor series: Turning to neighbors, friends for help and emotional support
STAR-TELEGRAM | RJ JACOB
Vaejoy Turner makes hot chocolate for Victor and Fabian Martinez after tutoring the boys at her Haltom City home. Turner is a neighbor of Antonio and Ofelia Luevano, who are raising seven children including Victor and Fabian. Turner, 80, says the Luevanos help her too.
View image of Relationship between heart rate and resilience
Children who were breast-fed exclusively for the first three months of life or longer scored nearly six points higher on IQ tests at the age of 6 than children who weren't breast-fed exclusively, a new study has found.
iStockphoto | A Howe
European starling. New research demonstrates that birds respond to a human's gaze.
S Butts | the Journal
Thousands of Edmonton homeless may soon be able to receive free voice mail service from family, friends, aid and housing agencies and potential employers by simply picking up any phone, if a proposal from a pair of NAIT grads takes flight.
May 6, 2008
VNA/VNS | P Biet
People collect rice for the campaign Saving Rice for the Poor’s Jar in mountainous district Vinh Thanh, central Binh Dinh Province. The programme encourages local households to save a little rice from each meal to donate to poor people in the area.
E THUM | Journal Staff
Pam Byrd, a mother of four, stops working on her personal statement for her application to Wells College in order to hug her youngest son Zion Mukasa on Sunday, March 30 at her home in Ithaca. Byrd recently got her associate's degree from Tompkins Cortland Community College through the Public Assistance Comprehensive Education program and is applying to Wells College in hopes of getting a bachelor's degree in sociology.
Turns out that there is a movement of people who seek to escape the need for money by assuming a life of poverty. . . . The people to whom my friend was referring defy the dictionary definition of poverty in one crucial way: They do not lack the money to live at a standard considered normal in society. Most have quite healthy stores of money and have the full ability to get and retain good, high paying jobs.
Pl Masturzo | Akron Beacon Journal
Shaun Koher, 27, of Akron, works as a cook at Essex Healthcare, a nursing home in Tallmadge. Koher learned the skills he needed to find the job through a county welfare program.
AC Williams
Mauricio and Ruth Ocon of Del Paso Heights are raising their three grandchildren - Kristal Vasquez, 15, top left, Mercedes Anderson, middle, 11, and Robert Anderson, 6 - on state foster care funds and Mauricio Ocon's Social Security income. Ruth Ocon calls the governor's proposed cuts in foster care spending "horrible."
Tribune | G KAISER
Linda Smith is a case manager for the Young Moms' Self-Sufficiency Program at the Youth Service Bureau in St. Joseph County.
The Asian Development Bank on Saturday promised financial help for nations fighting the global food price crisis and attacked plans for a rice cartel. Loans will help countries subsidise the price of food staples for the poor.
May 5, 2008
Troy Green
Social work major Karen Bush
Antioch Community Action Team Officer Cliff Rezentes has helped Tom Herrington, a homeless man who has been living in the Antioch area since November, get a bus ticket to return to his family in Houston, Texas.
L Argyle
Precilla Hart has Ritscher-Schinzel Syndrome and needs constant care.
May 2, 2008
M Mostovy-Eisenberg
Ronald Okello, who is scheduled to receive a prosthetic arm this week here in Philadelphia.
D McPhee
The Kirkdale area of Liverpool. . . Liverpool remains the most deprived district in England despite an influx of regeneration cash and a government drive to reduce inequality, official figures show. . . Despite being affordable compared to other areas, residents were not well placed to benefit as skill levels were well below the British median. . . The city also had a relatively high crime rate, low life expectancy and poor social cohesion.
C Thomond
The latest snapshot of local deprivation in England uses the new Indices for Multiple Deprivation (IMD) released by the Department for Communities and Local Government earlier this year, which measure the relative position of a geographical area rather than the absolute level of deprivation within that area. [above] Derelict housing in Manchester, the fourth most deprived district in England according to the latest IMD figures.
By the time Sylvia Ann Moreno has finished her studies, she plans to "come back down to Brownsville" to work in child protective services and help prevent domestic violence.
Interim Social Welfare and Health Minister Dr Jiko Luveni said she could understand the difficulties poor people and low income earners in Fiji were facing. "Yes, I am concerned as a minister and we are looking at options on how we can help the poor," she said. "But at the moment, we can't increase the allocation we give to the poor under the Poverty Alleviation Fund."
With a masters degree in social work, Indian actress Nandita Das is more keen to talk about women's empowerment and human rights than participate in the glamour of Bollywood.
P Macdiarmid | Getty
An inmate at the Young Offenders' Institution attached to Norwich Prison. The thirst for tabloid headlines and tough political soundbites is suppressing the harsh reality of prison life. But why aren't more individuals standing up for the truth?
Listonshiels day service
A group of people with learning disabilities and helpers look around outside Bradford central library
Alcohol can make people frisky, chatty and, as any bouncer knows, feisty. Now, a new brain scan study shows drinking actually dampens the biological ability to feel fear.