News Items – April 15, 2015

How Frances Perkins Found Her Vocation
The Atlantic Monthly
The [Triangle Shirtwaist Factory] fire and its aftershocks left a deep mark on Frances Perkins. Up until that point she had lobbied for worker rights and on behalf of the poor, but she had been on a conventional trajectory, toward a conventional marriage, perhaps, and a life of genteel good works. After the fire, what had been a career turned into a vocation. Moral indignation set her on a different course. Her own desires and her own self became less central and the cause itself became more central to the structure of her life.

HPU: Witnessing, Responding to Homelessness
Honolulu Civil Beat
While the myriad issues surrounding homelessness are complex and not susceptible to quick or easy solutions, we are taking action. The HPU School of Social Work organized a full week of community engagement activities, which were free and open to the public, and HPU community members spent last week focused on homelessness as it affects every person in our community. In this effort, our purposes were to raise community awareness, encourage dialogue, develop partnerships, and foster action.

The writer, Kay Castillo, is a member:
Raising the bar: The Governor’s HHS budget proposal for behavioral health
NCPolicyWatch – The Progressive Pulse
Gov. Pat McCrory’s budget proposal for the years 2015-17 offers a welcome change of direction in the area of behavioral health services, which would see spending increase by 1.5 percent compared to current law. Though far from what is really needed, this modest increase would be a real turnaround from years past when lawmakers imposed significant cuts to programs and direct services as a way to balance the budget and make up for revenues lost to tax cuts.

[Video] Designing Hawaii schools that keep out danger and let in nature
PBS News Hour
TOBY NEAL: If there were bars displayed, metal detectors that they have to go through, there’s this constant unsettled feeling. All of that creates a culture of anxiety and hyper-vigilance, which, when you’re in a hyper-vigilant state, which is watching out for danger, you can’t — it’s really hard to learn.
SYDNEY DEMPSEY: Toby Neal, a licensed clinical social worker at Maui Center for Child Development and a previous counselor at multiple Hawaii schools, suspects that fear-driven architecture may detach children from their roots.
TOBY NEAL: We didn’t evolve inside of buildings. And I think the optimal learning environment includes nature.

Jim Struve is a member:
Utahn suing over gay conversion therapy lauds Obama’s denouncement of treatment
The Salt Lake City Tribune
Historically, Utah has been a place where conversion therapy — now often called sexual-orientation-change efforts — has been widely promoted, said Jim Struve, a clinical social worker and a member of the LGBTQ-Affirmative Therapist Guild of Utah. “A lot of parents or people caught up with religious communities have sent kids to Evergreen or other groups with the belief or hope they can change,” Struve said. “When that change doesn’t happen, for a lot of kids there is incredible disappointment and distress.”

Danielle Smith is ED of the Ohio Chapter:
[Video] Movement underway in Ohio to ban ‘conversion therapy’ for minors
10tv.com
“It’s been well-documented that it’s dangerous- particularly for minors,” said Danielle Smith, Executive Director of the Ohio chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.  They are leading the fight to ban so called “conversion therapy” for minors in Ohio. “Because they are often forced into it by their guardians or parents. And the therapy- it really is just brainwashing.”  She cites the case of Leelah Alcorn, the transgender teen who committed suicide near Cincinnati, blaming conversion counseling forced onto her by her parents.

Barbara Longan-Thompson is a member:
[Video] Study links Facebook to depression
fourstateshomepage.com (Joplin, MO)
According to the University of Houston, a study shows that people who often visit Facebook, see a highlight reel of everyone’s life. Some can feel inferior with their own life. However, a Joplin therapist says people’s lives on Facebook can be deceptive. “People tend to put the better things about themselves. We look at all the good things about other people’s lives, and we tend to compare those to the negative things about our lives,” said Barbara Longan-Thompson, Clinical Social Worker.

John Moon is a member:
County Helping Sex Trafficking Victims Become Survivors
Texas Public Radio
Denial, shame, and guilt surround sex-related traumas, but victims of trafficking are different. They often don’t believe they are victims says John Moon, a licensed clinical social worker for the Mission Roads Center, “They genuinely believed they were in control. They genuinely believed they chose to do this; the insidious nature with which they are seduced, exploited, co-opted into doing the things they have done. And as you strip through those layers you can get to some of the guilt and shame we talked about.”

[Video] The Pennsylvania House passed a resolution recognizing NASW’s 60th Anniversary
YouTube
The Pennsylvania House on Tuesday passed a resolution by a vote of 199-0 recognizing NASW’s 60th Anniversary. Watch this video from Democratic Rep. Dan Frankel thanking the House for the resolution. Frankel’s wife and daughter are members of NASW. And congratulations to NASW’s Pennsylvania Chapter for this accomplishment!