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News Items – April 26, 2017

Dylan Minnette & Katherine Langford, 13 Reasons Why

Dylan Minnette & Katherine Langford, 13 Reasons Why

Nicholle Karim is 2017 NASW-NC Advocate of Year:
10 things parents should know about suicide if your teen’s watching ’13 Reasons Why’
WRAL (NC)
Mental health experts across the Triangle said Tuesday it’s critical that parents have candid conversations with their teens, whether they are watching “13 Reasons” or not, about mental health and suicide and that parents and teens are aware of resources where they can get help. Ninety percent of people who die by suicide have a mental illness, often depression, but it doesn’t have to be that way. “People who receive treatment for their mental illness are living meaningful and fulfilling lives,” said Nicholle Karim, public policy director at NAMI North Carolina, pointing to author J.K. Rowling, Lady Gaga and Demi Lovato, who all have spoken up about their own past struggles. “You want to underpin the conversation with hope and recovery.”

Shannon Kaster is a member:
Surrounded by Plenty, Many College Students Are Going Hungry
Iowa Public Radio
On almost every college campus, there are dining halls and cafeterias filled to the brim with food. Students have their pick of practically anything they want. And yet, a surprisingly high percentage of these young people are hungry. Grand View University senior Shannon Kaster is not your typical undergraduate college student. To begin, the Boone-native is 33-years-old. “I’m married, I have a four-year-old son at home and I’m pregnant with another one due in July,” she says. But she is experiencing something that is becoming all too common on campuses nationwide. “I personally have struggled with food insecurity for a long time,” she says.

NASW-WI is mentioned:
Wisconsin Democrats announce new gun safety coalition
NBC26
Assembly Democrats announced the creation of a new gun safety advocacy coalition Monday, saying they can’t believe Republicans want to further relax Wisconsin’s gun regulations. Reps. Terese Berceau, Melissa Sargent and Lisa Subeck, who all hail from Madison, held a news conference at the state Capitol to announce the formation of the Wisconsin Coalition for Gun Safety. The coalition includes the Wisconsin chapters of the National Physicians Alliance and the National Association of Social Workers, the Wisconsin Council of Churches and the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, or WAVE, among other groups.

Jennifer Wells is a member:
[Audio] Social Worker, Katrina Survivor: “West Virginia Chose Me”
Public News Service
Social worker Jennifer Wells says West Virginia chose her after Hurricane Katrina drove her out of her old home. And now her profession inspires her to make her new home a better place. Wells is one of four young women delivering the keynote at the National Association of Social Workers West Virginia spring conference this week in Charleston. The theme will be “West Virginia Chose Me.”

Heather Carmichael is a member:
Homeless Kids Get Their Hollywood Moment
CityWatch (Los Angeles)
How does this work? According to Heather Carmichael, Executive Director of My Friend’s Place, “Working with the leading social services providers and educational institutions in the region as well as over 400 volunteers, My Friend’s Place offers a free and comprehensive continuum of care that combines emergency necessities with therapeutic, health, employment and education assistance, and creative arts services through three programmatic areas.”

Lisbeth Wotherspoon is a member:
Frisbie Memorial Hospital honors its volunteers
New Hampshire Union Leader
Lisabeth Wotherspoon is a clinical social worker and therapist who brings her 75-pound French Mastiff into the geriatric unit every two weeks. They also visit people who are recovering from surgery. “Most people can relate to a dog, and most people have had a dog at some point in time in their life, so even though the people with pretty bad Alzheimer’s or dementia might not converse in a very logical way, once they see Copper, they just start opening up and they just start talking and wanting to pet him,” Wotherspoon said.

Sununu says fixing ‘disarray’ in state’s mental health services ‘not an option but a mandate’
NH1
Using blunt language, Gov. Chris Sununu made a personal pitch to end New Hampshire’s shortage of treatment for people battling severe mental illness and to overhaul the state’s problem plagued child protective services agency.… Sununu’s been calling for months for corrective action at DCYF, which faces a severe shortage of social workers that an independent review said was putting children at risk. “We’ve let these challenges, these issues go unaddressed for too long, and if we choose to wait any longer, the price tag will only increase,” the governor said. “It could cost taxpayers more and could cost more lives.”

Amy Horowitz is a member:
Boomerang Seniors: Aging adults move to be near mom or dad
Chicago Sun-Times
Caregiving for an older family member is not what it was when first studied and coined as the “sandwich generation,” those people squeezed between aging parents and young children, said Amy Horowitz, a professor of social work at Fordham University in New York City. “Now it’s the children who are on the verge of retirement or who have retired and are still having responsibility of older parents,” she said. “In New York City, I know somebody whose almost-90-year-old mother is living in the same apartment building. It becomes, how do you balance your own life?”

Marlene Wong is a member:
After ICE Detains Father, Los Angeles Sisters Cope with Trauma, Disruption
The Chronicle of Social Change
One of the more severe reactions to this kind of event is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), said Marleen Wong, a child trauma expert at the University of Southern California’s Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. “The stress of seeing your parent detained and the uncertainty of what’s going to happen to him or her — will you be reunited? — that’s pretty stressful,” Wong said. “But does it reach the level of PTSD? For some kids, yes, and for other kids, no.” The severity of trauma that a child experiences can depend on the presence of what Wong and other family psychologists call “protective factors.” These include support from family members and from community groups and the ability to see and communicate with the removed parent.

Inside the Grassroots Movement to Groom a New Generation of Democratic Candidates
Time Magazine
Hannah Risheq, a 25-year-old social worker from northern Virginia who’s running for a seat in the state’s house of delegates, got hooked up by the group with a mentor and a campaign manager. “I thought I’d run in the future,” Risheq says. “I decided: Why not now?”

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