News Items – December 26, 2019
Drew Martel is a member:
[Video] Social workers feeling the impacts of shortage throughout Iowa
KCRG
Social workers throughout Iowa are being overworked. That’s because there aren’t enough to fill the needs of our growing communities. “Social workers are involved in just about every aspect,” said Drew Martel, a licensed social worker and Foundation 2 Director of Crisis Services. Martel is just one of those many social workers working overtime to help some of our area’s most vulnerable populations. “You would be hard-pressed to find any provider for profit that would say they can find the staff they need, or shifts they need so that makes it tough,” he said.

Kathy Jrateh is a member:
Sports as fuel
The Philadelphia Inquirer
In her profession, Kathy Jrateh (pronounced Dra-ta), a social worker at Girard College, worries that the word resilience might suggest Dajah Horsey has “got it all covered” and no longer will struggle. Thanks in part to Jretah, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act can help Horsey and others should they struggle. The federal law is designed to “address the needs of homeless children and youths and ensure educational rights and protections for these children.”

Kay Castillo is director of Advocacy, Policy & Legislation for NASW-NC:
After officer deaths, more NC inmates with mental illness find themselves in solitary confinement
North Carolina Health News
“We know that in a prison system, we have a lot of inmates with behavior issues who have issues following prison rules,” Kay Castillo, a lobbyist for the North Carolina chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, told state lawmakers during a special prison safety committee meeting convened after the officers’ deaths. “What happens is they have an infraction, they get put into solitary confinement and their mental illness gets worse as a result.” “They have more problems following rules,” she continued. “They have another infraction, they go back to solitary, and they can’t get out of solitary.”

Will Francis is executive director of NASW-TX:
Texas agrees to caseload ‘guidelines’ for CPS foster care workers who’ve been slammed
The Dallas Morning News
Texas has agreed to guidelines for trying to reduce workloads for three types of state employees who touch the lives of foster children.… Will Francis, executive director of the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, also welcomed the deal. For CPS conservatorship workers, he said, a high caseload “severely hampers their ability to adequately support and engage with kids in care.”