The writer, Carla Naumburg, is a member:
The Lesson I Learned From My Daughter’s Night Monsters
The Washington Post
My 4-year-old has been having a hard time sleeping lately. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but rarely a night goes by without her screams yanking me awake. By the time I stumble into her room, she’s sobbing with fear, stuck in a space between sleep and wakefulness, unable to communicate what’s happening.

UNCG, N.C. A&T get $1.1M grant for social work
Greensboro News & Record (NC)
Graduate students in social work at two area universities will get paid internships thanks to a new federal grant. UNCG announced Monday that the Joint Master of Social Work Program — a combined effort between N.C. A&T and UNCG — will share a $1.1 million grant over the next three years.

Gail Steketee is a member:
Tips for Ending Your Shopping Addiction
US News & World Report
In some cases, compulsive shopping overlaps with compulsive hoarding, where people accumulate so much stuff that it interferes with their lives and living spaces, says Gail Steketee, ​dean of Boston University’s School of Social Work and co-author of “Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding.” Treatment through therapy often helps, and it takes about six months to a year to make significant changes.

[Video] Library social worker helps homeless seeking quiet refuge
PBS NewsHour
Meet the nation’s first full-time library social worker. Instead of trying to keep homeless residents from taking shelter in the urban haven of public libraries, San Francisco has adopted a new approach: employing a trained professional to address the needs of these visitors. The NewsHour’s Cat Wise reports.

[Audio] State expected to merge two agencies
WSJM-FM (MI)
Governor Rick Snyder is expected to soon sign an executive order that will create the state’s largest agency. Officials say the merger of the Department of Community Health and Department of Human Services will save money, and better meet the needs of an underserved population. Maxine Thome, with the National Association of Social Workers in Michigan, says the new agency could provide a more integrated system of care, but how it will happen is still up in the air. Thome says as the programs are blended, Governor Snyder and other top officials should recognize the critical need for local input. She adds that social workers and others on the front lines of agencies have a unique perspective, and their voices should be heard in determining how the merger is implemented.

Caitlyn Ryan is a member:
LGBTQ Youth Study Reveals That It Really ‘Does Get Better’ Over Time
The Huffington Post
Caitlin Ryan, director of the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University, said one of the study’s important messages is the ongoing need for prevention and support. That may include educating family members about their roles as advocates and creating accepting and inclusive school environments, said Ryan, who was not involved in the new study. “There are thousands and thousands of school districts,” she said. “Many school districts have stepped up and done a good job, but others have not.”

Thomas “Tab” Ballis is a member:
There’s a right and wrong way to break up
Wilmington (NC) Star-News
“In a nutshell, the rule is earlier rather than later,” said Tab Ballis, a clinical social worker with Insight Wellness Services of Wilmington. “The tragic thing is when people hang on to a relationship that is no longer viable.” Conversations with Grotsky, Ballis and a number of other area psychologists, therapists and counselors – people who help others deal with the after-effects of breakups – suggested a few basic guidelines.

Does sex trafficking increase around the Super Bowl?
PolitiFact
For the past few years, campaigns against human sex trafficking have swelled in the days before the Super Bowl, largely because of the persistence of a claim that it’s the largest sex trafficking event in the country.… We spoke with Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, a social work professor at Arizona State University who is leading the latest academic research on sex trafficking around the Super Bowl. Her research intends to discover whether or not there is an increase in sex-trafficking events surrounding the Super Bowl and to further understand sex trafficking trends.

Dennis McNamara is a member:
[Video] Jail’s new release system may trap some inmates
KTVL (Medford, OR)
Dennis McNamara is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who is contracted by Jackson County as the jail’s Mental Health Coordinator. McNamara said the new matrix doesn’t cover everyone’s needs. “There has been an increase in the number of people that we have kept here because of the new risk assessment criteria who have chronic mental illness,” said McNamara. McNamara deals directly with inmates with mental health illnesses. He said his chronically homeless patients usually have no job or food to eat. “Showing up for court is not an issue for them and they don’t show up for court and then they wind up getting picked up on a failure to appear,” explained McNamara.