Balto. Co. studying effects of domestic violence on children
The Baltimore Sun
Children often witness domestic violence, but social workers have had no standardized way to examine how they are affected by it. Now, Baltimore County’s social services department has partnered with experts from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Minnesota to develop a screening tool that would, for the first time, quantify the impact of domestic violence on children.

Book Addresses Healing For Survivors Of Abuse
Webster Kirkwood Times
“We will be presenting it in March at the National Association of Social Workers of Missouri at the Lake of the Ozarks.” This is the second book by the Kirkwood psychotherapists.

Photo-Op: Steel Nerve
Wall Street Journal
Trained as a teacher and social worker, Hine (1874-1940) picked up a camera in 1904 so that he could offer photography classes at his school. Soon he was advertising his services in the field of ‘Social Photography,’ with a specialty in ‘graphic representations of conditions and methods of work.’ Commissions from the National Child Labor Committee produced some of his most haunting images: photographs of newsies, including one sleeping with papers for a pillow; a crowd of boy miners whose ghostly faces barely break the enveloping coal dust; a 5-year-old Mississippi shrimp picker.

Dancers say no to drugs: Crew helps teenagers stay sober
Pacific Daily News
On Talavera’s desk — which occupies a space that was once a set of toilets — is a picture of his original crew. There’s also an award from the National Association of Social Workers for exemplary service in 2011.

Has the sex stopped?
MyNews.in
“I’ve been a marriage therapist for 20 years, and I’d estimate that one in three couples struggles with this issue,” says Michele Weiner-Davis, author of The Sex-Starved Marriage. “It affects all types of people, regardless of age or years spent together.”

Mentor teaching young men in Detroit how to dream, see themselves in a better …
Detroit Free Press
Without that man, Lewis, who has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Michigan, says he could have easily been another statistic. African-American men remain twice as likely as white men to be unemployed, three times as likely to live in poverty and more than six times as likely to be incarcerated, according to a 2009 National Urban League report.

Aging and Life Quality: What Does the Future Hold?
Scientific American (blog)
“There seems to be a sort of fear, if you will, of aging,” said Valentine Villa, a California State Los Angeles Social Work professor and the director of the Applied Gerontology Institute. “In aggregate we are doing better in terms of health, in terms of socioeconomic status. We’ve been living longer.”

Kentucky social service workers face ‘crushing caseloads,’ panel told
Louisville Courier-Journal
Steve Beshear proposed adding $21 million to the state social services department that would be be used to hire 300 more workers — 91 front-line social workers and the rest family-support workers who handle public assistance cases for people seeking Medicaid, food stamps or other benefits.

Picking a therapist
Chicago Tribune
An Internet search for umbrella organizations can also lead the way: The American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, for example. “We all have national professional associations.

Fatality raised more questions about Kimberly Even’s credentials as drug counselor
The Chicago Tribune
He died in 2009 of a heroin overdose while being counseled by Kimberly Even — a woman who had been warned to stop claiming she was a certified counselor by the professional organization that sets the standards for drug counselors, records show. The state also was investigating her credentials at the time of the death.

China’s unfledged social workers looking for support, recognition
Shanghai Daily (subscription)
Wang first came across social work while employed as a dustman in Beijing. When Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome swept the city in 2003, social workers called on his dorm to hand out disinfectants and masks. “At a moment when everyone was panicked by the epidemic, I had never known that there were still people who cared about the needs of strangers. I found social work a worthwhile career,” says the 31 year old from north China’s Hebei Province.