Law enforcement, social work agencies cooperate to help children threatened by drug making and abuse

Date: July 21, 2009

Author: Jason Noble

Summary: This article describes a collaborative effort between police officers and social workers in the investigation of child abuse, drug use and manufacturing.  A conference sponsored by the Missouri Alliance for Drug Endangered Children will be attended by police officers, social workers, prosecutors, and educators among others, to learn how to cooperate when investigating situations involving children who may be exposed to drug activity.

Relevance: Social workers play a key role in child welfare and the protection of children.

Questions:

1) What are some advantages of collaboration between police officers and social workers? What are some disadvantages of collaboration between police officers and social workers?   

2) Were you familiar with police social work prior to reading this article?

3) Look up Police Social Work in the Encyclopedia of Social Work 20^th edition.  Summarize the Police Social Work entry.  

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Adoption series: Fact and Fiction

Date: July 23, 2009

Author: Cheri Rae

Summary: This article describes recent events related to adoption advocacy such as the release of a horror movie titled “Orphan” and the advocacy performed by a group called Orphans Deserve Better prior to the release of the movie.  The article also describes legal events related to an adoption scam.

Relevance: Social workers provide a variety of adoption services including advocacy.

Questions:

1) What are your thoughts regarding the advocacy performed prior to the release of the film?   

2) Do you feel prepared to engage in a social work advocacy role? Why or why not?

3) What additional advocacy skills do you feel you would need, if any?

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Spate of teen suicides challenges reporting taboo

Date: July 27, 2009

Author: Stuart Rintoul

Summary: This article reports that suicides were previously not reported in the Australian media.  Reporting appears to be shifting following a number of teen suicides.

Relevance:  Social workers provide a variety of services to teens.

Questions:

1) Have you noticed a difference in reporting homicides and suicides in your community or nationally?   

2) What are your thoughts about reporting suicides in the media? Do you feel that “copycat” suicides occur as a result of reporting?  

3) Do you see similarities between what is occurring in Australia and what is occurring in the U.S.?

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Allegations of politics in licensing controversy

Date: July 19, 2009

Author: Nancy Hicks

Summary: This article describes the decisions of a state to not recognize homosexuals as a protected class and the implications of these decisions on licensing regulations for social workers.  

Relevance:  Social workers are licensed by state boards and should be familiar with licensing regulations. 

Questions:

1) What are your thoughts about the decision of the state to not recognize homosexuals as a protected class?

2) Do you think that social workers should be able to refuse services or referrals to homosexuals? Why or why not?  

3) Do you think that options should be available for social workers to refuse providing services or referrals when they find client issues morally objectionable? Why or why not?

4) Do you think that refusing to provide services and referrals to certain clients is against the NASW Code of Ethics or mission of social work? Why or why not?

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Social worker jailed by Ky. judge

Date: July 18, 2009

Author: Deborah Yetter

Summary: This article describes the experiences of a social worker who had two court appointments appearances scheduled for the same day.  The social worker was ordered to serve 24 hours in jail after not attending one of the court appearances.

Relevance:  This article describes an example of legal issues that social workers can face while performing their work.

Questions:

1) What are your thoughts about this case?

2) What do you think about the social worker being asked to use vacation hours to cover his time in jail and not receiving support from his agency?

3) What do you think about the advice that the social worker received from his supervisors? What type of advice or support do you think that he should have received?

4) Do you think that the social worker and supervisors could have done anything differently?

5) What reasons were given suggesting why the judge ordered the social worker to serve time in jail?

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When family time gets too close for comfort

Date: July 19, 2009

Author: Craig Nakano

Summary: This article describes the impact of the economic recession on families.  Because some families may have less money to spend they are spending more time together.

Relevance:  Social workers provide a variety of services to families.

Questions:

1) Do you think that families spending more time together will have a positive or negative impact on families? Why or why not?

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Video conferencing may work as therapy for elderly

Date: July 13, 2009

Author: Nathan Batoon

Summary: This article describes a collaboration between the National Institute of Mental Health and a School of Social Work to address depression in homebound elderly individuals.  The collaboration will focus on “telehealth” also known as video conferencing and problem-solving treatment.

Relevance: Social workers provide a variety of services to the elderly.

Questions:

1) What is a feasibility study?

2) Describe the use of video conferencing among psychotherapy practitioners and its use in the collaboration. What are your thoughts about the use of video conferencing?

3) Why might video conferencing therapy double or triple the number of individuals who can be treated?

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Homeless like us

Date: July 13, 2009

Author: Alexi Mostrous

Summary: This article describes how the economic recession is changing the stereotypes associated with homeless individuals.  A report was recently released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development describing homeless rates, the number of homeless families, and homelessness in urban and rural communities.

Relevance: Social workers provide services to individuals impacted by the economic recession.

Questions:

1) Summarize the findings of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report.

2) Summarize the statistical data describing the concentrations of homelessness, and the numbers of individuals who used homeless shelters. Be sure to include the data for both cities and states.

3) Describe the typical homeless individual.

4) Compare and contrast homeless men with homeless women.

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Teachers and lawyers offered £15,000 a year to go into social work in wake of Baby P scandal

Date: July 10, 2009

Author: Daily Mail Reporter

Summary: This article describes the efforts of the Children’s Secretary to increase the number of social workers to fill vacancies in various children’s services departments.  Various departments have complained that they can not fill social work positions and have numerous vacancies.

Relevance: Social workers play a key role in child welfare and the protection of children.

Questions:

1) What do you think of the plan to offer teachers and lawyers financial incentives to retrain as social workers?

2) How many times had Baby P been seen between social workers, medial workers and police prior to his death? Why do you think that his death occurred despite these numerous visits?

3) Describe the social work vacancy rate in British child welfare departments. What approach do you think can be taken to reduce the vacancy rates? Why?

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Older job seekers work to overcome age barrier

Journalist: Christopher S. Rugaber     

Date: July 6, 2009 

Summary: This article describes the experiences of older unemployed older workers, their efforts to obtain employment and age discrimination rates reported to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Relevance: Unemployed older workers may see social workers for services.

Questions:
1) Why might unemployed older workers find it hard to obtain employment?
2) Describe some of the resume-tinkering techniques used by older workers? What are your thoughts about resume-tinkering?  What other strategies are unemployed older workers using to seek employment?
3) Compare and contrast the length of time for unemployed workers 55 and older with those under 55. 
4) Compare and contrast the complaints of age bias reported to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission presently and going back 16 years.
5) In what ways is the current economic recession different for older workers than the 1981-1982 recession?

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