Dorothy Stowe. Photo courtesy of TV5Monde.

Social worker and Greenpeace co-founder Dorothy Stowe died on Friday at age 89, according to this article in the Vancouver Sun.

When the United States in 1970 announced it would do nuclear testing off the coast of Alaska Dorothy and husband Irving teamed up with couple Jim and Marie Bohlen to form an environmental protest group. That group, the Don’t Make a Wave committee, became Greenpeace.

Stowe was born Dorothy Anne Rabinowitz. She graduated from Pembroke, a women’s college at Brown University, and became a psychiatric social worker before getting involved in environmental activism.

She and her husband were Quakers and adopted the name Stowe in honor of Harriet Beecher Stowe, a Quaker abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Her moving opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution portrays the plight of former foster children. She was accepted into a master’s degree program at  New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. However, Gifford is $15,000 short of the money needed because she has no parent available to cosign a loan.

“While I don’t have a problem with being a statistic, I no longer want to be a negative statistic,” she wrote. “I want more than anything to be one of the few who made it. But even more than that, I want to be one of the ones who remembered to reach out to help someone else.”

To learn more about how social workers help foster children, visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Adoptions and Foster Care Web page by clicking here.

Coping Skills of Military Families Focus of Research
Baylor University
In a case of students inspiring the professors, two faculty members in Baylor University’s School of Social Work came to their latest area of research partially because of how they witnessed graduate students in the program who are military spouses cope with their challenges.

Parenting Questions
Metro Weekly
As early as 2002, the NASW Delegate Assembly adopted a formal policy supporting ”second-parent adoptions in same-sex households” and stating that ”[l]egislation seeking to restrict foster care and adoption by gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people should be vigorously opposed.”

Jay Noren resigns as Wayne State president
Chicago Tribune
School of Social Work Dean Phyllis Vroom will take over as acting president until an interim president is selected. Noren was hired in August 2008 as Wayne State’s 10th president.

For Domestic Violence Victims, a Little Financial Literacy Goes a Long Way
News from Rutgers
Postmus and her colleague Sara Plummer, an instructor in the School of Social Work, examined the impact of a curriculum, Moving Forward Through Money Management, created by The Allstate Foundation’s Economics Against Abuse Program.

University of Houston’s Meghan Baker named Social Work Student of …
EurekAlert
She personifies the core values in the NASW Code of Ethics, with two values in particular standing out. The first is her dedication to service, volunteering and advocating for three distinct service organizations while undertaking a rigorous full-time dual degree and working part time.

Want to keep your child drug-free? Here are five signs of possible trouble
CNN
“I don’t think most parents go running down the path that you have an emerging addict on your hands anytime they try something,” says Jan Ligon, a member of the National Association of Social Workers.

Photo of Joan Najbar and the letter that mistakenly said her son had died in Iraq. Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe.

Social worker Joan Najbar, MSW, LICSW, sued the United States when a letter she sent her son serving in Iraq in 2006 was returned and marked “deceased.”

According to this article in the Star-Tribune in Minneapolis-St. Paul, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz recently threw out the case, saying he had no jurisdication to rule on this controversial matter. Najbar had also sought $118,000 in damages from the U.S. Postal Service but was twice denied.

“This happened while he was.. being shot at in Baghdad. That’s not OK…not to even say oops or sorry,” Najbar said.

Q: Should Najbar continue her legal battle or let the matter drop?

Doctors say stress over oil spill to linger for years
WWL
We found increased use of mental health services even reported physical health complaints that are more like chronic disease like diabetes and cancer,” said Dr. Larry Palinkas, a professor in the School of Social Work at USC.

State settles suit over boy’s death for $2.1 million
Seattle Times
DSHS said the social worker in charge of the case did not alert police or investigate the abuse claims — something they are required to do after abuse is reported — due to inadequate training.

Troubled times ahead for state Rep. Geoff Simpson
Seattle Post Intelligencer
A social worker for Children’s described the incident as the ex-wife did, according to the police report. The social worker said she saw Simpson “barrel” into the room, push his ex-wife out, shut the door, close the blinds and barricade himself in the room.

Summer Camp Fund: From camper to staffer and a new life
Los Angeles Times
Eddie Ramos recalls the journey from his life as ‘Wolf’ in East LA to graduate of USC’s School of Social Work. RM Pyles Boys Camp drove him along.

Grant hopes to aid teen parents
Grand Island Independent
The centerpiece of the grant is money to hire a half-time social worker, who will be employed by St. Francis Medical Center, but who will be assigned to work one-on-one with teen moms, pregnant teens, teen fathers and male teenagers at Senior High who know they will soon be fathers.

Annette Baran, author, crusader for open adoption, dies at 83
Kansas City Star
By VALERIE J. NELSON Living with a secret is psychologically destructive – that concept was nearly an anthem for Annette Baran, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist who co-wrote “The Adoption Triangle,” an influential 1978 book credited with giving early shape to the open-adoption movement.

 Woman helps North Richland Hills police with domestic incidents
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
D. Lynn Jackson, a professor of social work at the University of North Texas in Denton who works with criminal offenders, likes the Police Department’s approach.

Health care groups still lobbying for hike in Md. alcohol tax
Bizjournals.com
A coalition that includes AARP Maryland, Maryland Assembly of Family Physicians, Maryland Nurses Association, Maryland Citizen’s Health Initiative, American Academy of Pediatrics, Maryland Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers and Maryland NAACP have signed on in support of the proposal.

Annette Baran. Photo courtesy of YouTube.

Social worker, psychotherapist and National Association of Social Workers member Annette Baran revolutionized the world of adoption.

Beginning in the 1950s Baran, ACSW, was director of adoptions at what was formerly called Visa Del Mar Child-Care Service in West Los Angeles. According to this obituary in the Los Angeles Times adoptions then were closed, with adoptive parents and adoptees not given information about or contact with birth parents.

However, Baran began to change her mind about this practice when a birth mother wanted to interview the adopted parents before relinquishing her child. Baran arranged the meeting without her agency knowing.

“And I sat there listening to the three of them,”  Baran said in this interview  posted on YouTube.  ”And I thought there is nothing wrong with this. This is really pretty good. Why does everything have to be this secret? What is all that nonsense about?”

Baran went on to become of the nation’s leading advocates for open adoptions and co-author of  “The Adoption Triangle,” a 1978 book that helped shaped the open adoption movement.

Baran died on July 11 at age 83 from complications from an infection. However, her legacy lives on.

The research from Baran and others proved adopted people who are connected to birth families feel more normal and whole and birth parents are relieved of lingering anxiety over what happened to the children they gave up.

“She became the Joan of Arc of open adoption,” her son Joshua said. “To the adoptees, she was their hero. At conferences, they would cheer her and weep.”

With Help After Storm, a Chance to Give Back
New York Times
Ms. Heintz and the staff — two psychiatrists, two psychologists and a clinical social worker for about 300 clients — are reaching out to the wives of the fishermen, holding focus groups to learn about their needs and teaching them breathing techniques and other coping mechanisms.

UC awarded contract for children’s mental health treatment
The News Record
The University of Cincinnati’s School of Social Work will soon be lending its expertise to Clermont County after being awarded a $1.1 million contract to evaluate a new mental health program in the county.

USC To Study Local Children Of Military Members
KGTV San Diego
According to USC’s School of Social Work, the program will monitor and address the social, academic and emotional challenges faced by children whose parents are deployed.

Column: Health care bill helps, but medical costs are still sickening
MLive.com
That dovetails with another recent survey, this one by the Association of Oncology Social Work. They found that two-thirds of cancer patients experienced financial hardships due to medical bills.

‘Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality’ Is a Huge Homophobic Fraud
Huffington Post
Ten Myths pushes the inaccuracy that a man who molests a boy is automatically gay even though the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Child Psychiatrists and the Child Welfare League of America, all say that the homosexuality and pedophilia are not linked.

Slaying of Citizen of the Year stuns Eastern Shore
The Virginian-Pilot
She received a degree in social work from Norfolk State University and her master’s from Ohio State University.  She was a board member of Eastern Shore Rural Health System and part owner of Therapeutic Intervention, where she worked with at-risk kids.

County Children & Youth ordered to provide info to social workers
York Daily Record
Jenna Mehnert, executive director of the state branch of the National Association of Social Workers, said Pennsylvania’s a bit lax when it comes to standards for social workers.

Social worker sees kids’ stress
Norwich Bulletin
Carolyn Trasko, a social worker in Preston who has spoken about families and stress, said children are reflecting an increased level of stress as their families struggle with issues such as financial problems.

EDITORIAL: Social worker could be influence
The Daily News Journal
With that partly in mind, Murfreesboro City Schools Director Linda Gilbert hired Tonya Hobbs last week as the system’s social worker to focus on the “whole child.”

New VA Rule to Help Vets with PTSD
New America Media
The rule change, which the New York Times reports could take affect as early as Monday, would eliminate the need of returning soldiers diagnosed with PTSD to document specific events, called stressors, in order to receive disability compensation.

House Calls For Elderly Could Relieve Squeezed ‘Sandwich Generation’
NPR
Older folks with lots of chronic illnesses aren’t the only ones who could benefit from a Medicare experiment funded through the new health law that will send doctors and nurse practitioners to visit them in their homes.

Vietnam Child-Abuse Case Exposes Lax Protection Services
TIME
In May, social work was officially recognized as a profession, a vital legal distinction in Vietnam’s communist society, in which nothing can happen without the central government’s assent.

Pressing for the passage of the Massachusetts Transgender Civil Rights Bill
Bay Windows
Rebekah Gewirtz of the National Association of Social Workers, Massachusetts Chapter, spoke after Springer. Gewirtz described the roll of social workers in the fight for transgender rights, explaining that social workers often work with transgender people, and they understand the difficulty that transgender people experience in their lives every day.

Sharone White Bailey. Photo courtesy of DelmarvaNow.com.

SocialWorkersSpeak.org would like to offer its condolescences to the family of Sharone White Bailey, MSW, a National Association of Social Workers member who was stabbed to death July 9. For more information on the crime, read this article on DemarvaNow.com.

White Bailey, 57, who lived in Exmore on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, was part owner and clinical director for Therapeutic Interventions in Belle Haven. Therapeutic Interventions is a community mental health provider that has served more than 400 children since it launched two years ago.

White Bailey was known for her generosity and was named 2010 Eastern Shore Citizen of the Year just three weeks ago. She leaves behind husband Roland “Butch” Bailey Jr. and stepdaughters Rori Bailey and Dana Bailey. To read her obituary click here.

Suspect Derrick Demond Epps, 36, was arrested soon after White Bailey’s body was found in her home. According to White Bailey’s family Epps suffered from mental illness and White Bailey tried to help him.

“She didn’t expect he would be that violent,” Roland Bailey told the Virginian-Pilot in this article. “He needed help and apparently he didn’t get it quick enough.”

Nguyen Hoang Anh, 14, was branded, had his teeth pulled out and solvents poured in his wounds by a couple who employed him on a shrimp farm. The couple was recently sentenced to more than 20 years in prison and the case has raised public awareness about child abuse in Vietnam.

 ”We don’t consider beating a child to be violence against children,” said Nguyen Hai Huu, director of the Ministry for Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs’ child-protection unit.

Vietnam recently recognized the social work profession and has launched a push to overhaul its social support system over the next decade.

The National Association of Social Workers  has a Human Rights and International Affairs Division that helps engage members with social work efforts around the globe. To learn more, click here.

Yael Lehmann. Photo courtesy of The Food Trust.

The Food Trust, an organization that helps promote access to affordable, healthy food, will use federal stimulus money to encourage Philadelphia corner food stores to stock more fruits and vegetables, according to this Philly.com article.

Social worker Yael Lehmann, MSW, is executive director of the Food Trust. Officials hope federal funds for healthier foods and the Food Trust’s work will help stave off a health care crisis in the city by preventing heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and diabetes, and by lowering health-care costs.

“We’ve been able to show store operators that there is customer demand for fresh foods,” Lehmann said. “There’s a misconception that people (in poor neighborhoods) don’t want fresh food. And we’re showing store owners that fruits and vegetables are actually profitable to sell.”

Childhood obesity is a major problem in the United States and First Lady Michelle Obama is spearheading a campaign to combat it. The National Association of Social Workers supports these efforts. In fact, the association monitored a Senate hearing on the issue. To learn more click here. Social workers also help consumers live healthier lives. To find out more click here to visit the NASW’s “Help Starts Here” Healthy Lifestyles Web page by clicking here. 

Terrie Williams

Terrie Williams is a clinical social worker by training who became a successful public relations professional by her own design. Over the years she has also inscribed her prominence as an author of the successful business and inspirational story, and she has emerged as a passionate advocate for youth and those who battle depression.

But it must rightfully be noted that the accomplishments of the Terrie Williams Agency have always served as a catalyst for her other successful endeavors. Her public relations achievements—and that of the Agency’s—have been featured as case studies in PR seminars, college texts, industry newsletters, and novels.

Terrie’s triumphs have been chronicled in numerous publications such as Adweek, Jet Magazine, The Boston Globe, New York Daily News, Washington Post, Crain’s New York Business and People magazine. She is a highly sought-after speaker and has shared her unique talent with many Fortune 500 companies and diverse organizations, from New York University to the National Hockey League.

She has also received many honors and awards, including: The New York Women in Communications Matrix Award in Public Relations (she was the first woman of color to receive this award in its 70-year history); the PRSA New York Chapter’s Phillip Dorf Mentoring Award; and The Citizen’s Committee for New York Marietta Tree Award for Public Service. In 1996 she was the first person of color honored with the Vernon C. Schranz Distinguished Lectureship at Ball State University, and in 1998 she donated her papers to the Howard University Moorland-Springarn Research Center Archives.

Terrie is the author of three successful books: the business bestseller The Personal Touch: What You Really Need to Succeed in Today’s Fast-Paced Business World; the inspirational A Plentiful Harvest: Creating Balance and Harmony through the Seven Living Virtues; and Stay Strong: Simple Life Lessons for Teens, the basis for the 2001 launch of The Stay Strong Foundation, a national non-profit designed to educate and encourage American youth.

Terrie’s current work, a book entitled Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting, tells the untold story of depression among African-Americans as well as Terrie’s tale of her own chronic and crippling depression—a revealing narrative she shared in the June 2005 issue of ESSENCE magazine.

And she continues to work tirelessly to reach out to individuals who have suffered or are now suffering—from the struggling high school student, to the successful executive who puts forth the daily “mask”, to the gang member, the incarcerated and those who served time but were later proven innocent. Her drive to “save the world” leads her and the efforts of The Stay Strong Foundation to urge corporate and individual responsibility and to offer educational and leadership workshops, internships, and mentoring opportunities for youth.

Terrie has a B.A. (cum laude) in psychology and sociology from Brandeis University, and a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University.

Biography and photo courtesy of the Terrie Williams Agency.

Until Cryonics Do Us Part
New York Times
“I am a hospice social worker. I work with people who are dying all the time. I see people dying All. The. Time. And what’s so good about me that I’m going to live forever?”

Anna Eshoo

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) is pushing legislation to expand availability of a free telephone social service referral number throughout the nation, according to this article in the Mercury News.

In some parts of the country the public can dial 211 to get referrals to a variety of social services, including mental health programs, domestic violence shelters, emergency housing and substance abuse counseling.

Eshoo has a bill to provide $100 million per year through 2014 for grants to support the service. Nonprofits and local governments would have to match the grants, she said.

“I’ve been a social worker for 20 years, and I really feel like it’s revolutionized the way I do my work,” California social worker Dawn Valadez said in the article.

To find out whether 211 telephone service is available in your area click here. You can also learn about the many services social workers provide by visiting the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Web site by clicking here.

Hogg Foundation Marks 70th Anniversary with $50000 In Scholarships to Texas …
University of Texas at Austin News
Ten students at Texas graduate social work programs have received $50000 in special scholarship awards honoring the 70th anniversary of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.

Building happy families: Foster parent recruiter Erica Jourdan lives her work …
Asheville Citizen-Times
“Social work is hard. It is heartbreaking. It is exhausting. But that’s exactly what makes it so rewarding,” she said.

DC social workers fired in maelstrom of Banita Jacks case should be reinstated
Washington Post
All of the social workers who had anything to do with the Jacks case were thumped in grand fashion by an angry and decisive Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D).

Nonprofit administration a new niche for Baylor School of Social Work
Dallas Baptist Standard
But they were administrative workers, not clinical social workers, and they signal the emergence of a niche specialty for the Baylor School of Social Work.

Camp helps foster children reconnect with siblings
Baltimore Sun
Social workers often organize visits, but those usually occur within a limited time frame and in a more structured environment.

Tribute | Joan King Upshaw left her mark on the field of social work
Kansas City Star
She was the quintessential social worker, he said. “She also was a true clinician,” Griffith said. “She could relate well to people at all levels.

Cop-turned-felon making the most of his second chance
Pioneer Press
Wollack, a former New York City cop turned social worker, later founded an award-winning social services non-profit for abused and neglected kids and and juvenile offenders.

Young illegal immigrants get chance to learn but not earn
Sacramento Bee
Their legal paradox has become a central issue for illegal immigrant students, said Roberto Gonzales, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Washington who studies the demographic.

Social work: fulfilling but not high-paying
Times Record (blog)
“Social workers … believe in social justice, they believe in fairness, they believe in assisting people in finding the resources they need … whatever resources might be,” she said.

UTC social work program gets accreditation
Chattanooga Times Free Press
More than 60 percent of mental health treatment is delivered by social workers. More than 600000 people in the US hold social work degrees.

Gay Racists: On the Fringe of the Fringe
EDGE Boston
Gary Bailey, is the chairperson of the National Social Work Public Education Campaign, an out-gay man who teaches the racism coursework at the Simmons College School of Social Work.

Social worker deals with ER patients
Dayton Daily News
She was then able to refer to herself as a social worker. She said her early work in the mental health field served her well when pursuing the master’s.

Dentral Holman Smith. Photo courtesy of Smith's Facebook page.

Philadelphia social worker Dentral Holman Smith has been unemployed for more than a year and her unemployment benefits recently ran out. As of today Congress has not extended unemployment checks to about a million Americans who have come to the end of their benefit period.

The Los Angeles Times ran this story on Smith and her struggle to remain optimistic despite her dire situation. “I’m blessed it (unemployment insurance) lasted as long as it did,” said Smith, who is trying to launch her own business. “The time I received my benefits is the time I was given to grow spiritually.”

Q: Considering the state of the economy should Congress extend benefits to long-term unemployed Americans?  Or is it time to stop the checks in order to help reduce the rising national deficit?

The school lost Council on Social Work Education accreditation due to staff turnover and an outdated curriculum. The new status will be retroactive so students who graduated since 2006 can say they attended an accredited program, the article said.

Attending an accredited school is important for social workers who want to get licensure and gain admittance to most graduate level social work programs.

To find schools that offer accredited social work programs go to the National Association of Social Workers’ Be a Social Worker Web site and visit the “Social Work and You” Web page. Social workers frequently get education and training beyond a bachelor’s degree to practice in their profession. To learn more, visit the NASW’s Credentialing Center Web page by clicking here.

Special Committee on Decolonization Urged to Visit Guam as Petitioners
UN Department of Public Information
RIMA ILARISHIGH PETER MILES, Women for Genuine Security, called for immediate United Nations action to advance the protection and fulfilment of the right to self-determination of Guam’s Chamoru people.

Carol the Coach’s Dream About Oprah: We Can Help
Lawrence Journal World (blog)
Carol Juergensen Sheets (LCSW PCC CSAT Motivation Speaker) is a mighty name for a woman of such small stature, but it suits her powerful spirit and her ability to dream large.

Charles Ensley, Labor Leader and Union Critic, Dies at 69
New York Times
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE Charles Ensley, who led the union representing New York City social workers for 26 years and was a forceful critic of union corruption, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 69.

Pro-Choice and Adoption: Outside the Culture Wars
Huffington Post (blog)
The Adoption Access Network is on the cusp of launching a campaign to “make adoption a subject that patients and social workers alike feel more comfortable broaching in abortion clinics.”

Study to explore influences on women offenders
Louisville Courier-Journal
“I would go home at night and those women were staying there,” said Golder, now an associate professor at the University of Louisville’s Kent School of Social Work.

Unemployed are losing some federal assistance
Baltimore Sun
Social workers answer the phones and direct consumers to hundreds of public and private programs depending on the need, says Chuck Tildon, vice president of external affairs.

New breed of med schools may transform healthcare
MiamiHerald.com
The teams include students from four disciplines that often don’t work closely enough — medical, nursing, public health and social work.

Violence has Chester in critical condition
Philadelphia Daily News
“It’s a potential quick fix,” said Chad Dion Lassiter, president of Black Men at Penn School of Social Work, Inc. at the University of Pennsylvania.

Practitioners trained in needs of returning vets
Atlanticville
WEST LONG BRANCH — The School of Social Work at Monmouth University is expanding efforts to improve the mental health treatment of New Jersey’s returning veterans through its Coming Home Project.

Study of Fort Worth’s homeless plan shows ‘dramatic progress’
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Three hundred twenty-two homeless people have been housed through the plan, Directions Home, since April 2009, with many clients participating in counseling and substance abuse treatment, the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work found.

N.J. Senate panel approves Gov. Christie’s choice to run Department of Children, Families
NJ.com
The full 40-member Senate is expected to vote Thursday or Monday to approve the nomination of Allison Blake, former director of the Institute for Families at the Rutgers School of Social Work.

On screen and off, really big families are really fascinating
AJC
“I think we’re always curious about things that we’re not around,” said Dr. Jan Ligon, associate professor of social work at Georgia State University.  “In 1790, about half of all families were comprised of over six people. Now only 3 percent of families have that many.”

The article quotes National Association of Social Workers member Michele Many, MSW, LCSW, who works at Louisiana State University.

“The oil spill is like a cancer or tumor,” she said. “It is creeping and unpredictable from whether people will have livelihoods or health issues later from helping clean it up. You just don’t know whether it is benign or malignant.”

Social workers help people recover from disasters. To learn more click here to read a tip sheet by John D. Weaver, LCSW, BCD, ACSW, CBHE, that is posted on NASW’s “Help Starts Here” Web site.