Cunningham: It’s not about what it costs, it’s about what people need
vtdigger.org
by Opinion | December 25, 2012 Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Julie Cunningham, LICSW, who is the executive director of Families First Vermont.

My journey on a social work training scheme with a local authority
The Guardian (blog)
I’ve just graduated as a social worker having studied for a MA at Middlesex University – but if you took me back six years to when I finished my undergraduate degree in philosophy and suggested I would end up practicing as a social worker, I would have probably smiled to myself and thought you were a bit misguided. So what’s changed?

Stumbling into a career in military social work
KOSU
Earlier this week I wrote about Eddie Black, a National Guardsman who returned from deployment with anxiety and anger problems — but didn’t realize he needed help until, almost by accident, he found himself speaking with a therapist who helped him “feel his body again.” Today, the other side of that story: a therapist who stumbled into the field of military mental health and has made it her life’s work.

Column: Disappearing boots, acts of kindness and New Year’s resolutions
The Daily News of Newburyport
Christopher G. Hudson, PhD is a professor in the School of Social Work at Salem State University, and president-elect of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

After Newtown: A rethinking of Connecticut law on outpatient commitment
TheCTMirror
Advocates for people with mental illness say Connecticut’s system is at the leading edge of a model that takes the opposite approach, with a focus on having people with mental illness make choices about their treatment, the same way a cancer patient would.

Clinical social worker says teen arrested for threat of terrorism never posed real danger
The Jackson Citizen Patriot – MLive.com
JACKSON, MI – A clinical social worker called Noah Moricz’s statements on Facebook, considered by authorities to be threats of school violence, adolescent banter and bravado. The verbiage was fueled by his depression and feelings of inadequacy rather than any real risk to a school, himself or anyone else, said Ruth Bel Genyk, with whom Moricz has been in treatment since January 2004.

Bill Would Improve Safety for Massachusetts Social Workers
ClaimsJournal.com
The bill requires the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to create a workplace violence prevention and crisis response plan for social workers, human service workers, volunteers, and other employees of programs providing direct services to clients.

US House, Senate pass bill to help social workers access foster kids’ education records
Washington Post
MIAMI — Federal lawmakers have passed a bill that will give social workers better access to school records in an effort to improve dismal education outcomes for foster children. Social workers had been required to get a court order to access a foster child’s school records under a law meant to protect the child’s privacy. But advocates said the extra red tape made it difficult for social workers because foster youths change schools frequently as they move between different homes.