Lauren Zingraff is a member:
[Video] Advocates on Coronavirus Testing in Long-Term Care Facilities
Spectrum News
Long-term health care advocates say that the state can do more to protect residents and staffers from coronavirus. We talk with Dr. Catherine Sevier of AARP North Carolina and Lauren Zingraff of Friends of Residents in Long-Term Care.

Kurtis Young is a member:
For Mental Health 911 Calls, Dallas Found Success In Social Workers
D Magazine
Kurtis Young, the director of social work for behavioral health services at Parkland, would welcome two more teams. With three teams, he said he would maintain a team in the south (where behavioral health emergency calls remain “plentiful”) and place a team in the northwest (where behavioral health emergency calls have risen the most), leaving one roaming team, which would deploy wherever depending on the day’s demands. The important thing, Young stresses, is developing relationships wherever they operate.

Danielle Stouder is a member:
A social workers’ duty was challenging and sad
US Department of Veterans Affairs
It was a virtual connection Latasha Cardenas and Danielle Stouder will never forget. While a Veteran was getting inpatient treatment for COVID-19, the Veteran’s wife was in another hospital, fighting the same virus. Staff didn’t expect her to make it through the next day. The Veteran’s daughter, the caregiver for both, was quarantined at home. The two Iowa City VA social workers collaborated with the outside hospital to pull together a last FaceTime connection for the Veteran and his wife. After 58 years of marriage, they were able to have a last conversation and say their goodbyes. The Veteran’s wife died shortly after they spoke.

Nick Fleisher is a member:
Retiring crisis intervention chief proud of CSO programs
Daily Hampshire Gazette
For the past 16 years, Nick Fleisher has served as vice president of community-based services for Clinical & Support Options (CSO), leading staff members in nonviolent crisis interventions every week in Hampshire and Franklin counties. As a leader in the region for behavioral health support, Fleisher, a 40-year resident of Northampton, is now looking back on his career after retiring from the job last week.

Sonya Richardson is a member:
Governor Appoints Social Work Professor to Statewide Task Force
Inside UNC-Charlotte
Gov. Roy Cooper has appointed UNC Charlotte social work professor Sonyia Richardson, Ph.D., to a statewide task force on health inequities. The move comes as part of an executive order aimed at addressing the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities of color. As a member of the 35-person Andrea Harris Social, Economic, Environmental and Health Equity Task Force, Richardson will work with leaders from across North Carolina to identify best practices to create economic stability, eliminate health disparities, and achieve environmental justice in North Carolina.

Jim Kendall is a member:
How Vanderbilt is working to protect the mental health of its staff
WSMV (Nashville, TN)
Hospitals are ensuring frontline workers are focusing on their mental health throughout this pandemic. Jim Kendall is a licensed clinical social worker and manager of the Work Life Connections program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He said their healthcare workers are experiencing a variety of emotions. “There is a significant emotional toll on our healthcare heroes caring for those very vulnerable folks with COVID, said Kendall.

Jeremy Schwartz is a member:
Conservative Christians are upset Facebook won’t let them advertise that gays can be “cured”
LGBTQ Nation
“Conversion therapy makes empty promises,” said Jeremy Schwartz, a licensed clinical social worker in New York. “When the treatment does not work, clients often experience guilt and shame. Blame is placed on the individual, who may be led to believe they did not try hard enough.” “The practice of conversion therapy also carries a social cost, as it perpetuates the myths that sexual orientation is a choice or that it can be changed, both of which are not true,” he said.

Montrella Cowan is a member:
Author reveals heartfelt tips on avoiding Unhealthy Relationships
Dallas Weekly
“I learned for sure that I don’t break, that I wasn’t spoiled and I damn sure wasn’t weak,” writes Cowan, who takes a holistic approach to her psychotherapy, tapping into the mind, body, and spirit to help people have healthy relationships and families. Cowan, who has her Master’s degree in Social Work (MSW) and owner of Affinity Health Affairs uses the analogy of a women’s purse to unpack those items typically in a woman’s purse, such as “The Mirror,” “The Sewing Kit,” “The Keys,” “The Panty Liners,” “Pepper Spray and Tissue,” “Lip Gloss,” and “Perfume”.

Edwin Hernandez-Martinez is a member:
For All Seasons grows next generation social workers through internship program
My Eastern Shore Maryland
Edwin Hernandez-Martinez, is working on a bachelor’s degree in social work and psychology at Salisbury University. “I have had a great experience working on the records management side of the agency and on the intake process. This has allowed me to deal with all ages at their most vulnerable times. Hearing different people’s stories has helped me interconnect with my textbook work from school. I have also learned a lot about listening skills. By listening on bilingual calls for the Spanish-speaking population, I have been able to learn about the issues they are facing in their community,” he said in the release.

Denise Duval Tsioles is a member:
[Video] Local Expert Offers Parents Advice For Summer Learning Slump
NCTV
Knowing that her kids may not always be up for learning, Glass has allowed them to play more video games, which she says has reduced their stress because they’re not always thinking about learning. It’s a good idea according to Denise Duval Tsioles, a licensed clinical social worker at Child Therapy Naperville. “I think the biggest things parents can do right now is say ‘you know what it’s not always going to be like this. We’re going to do the best that we can. If the kids are on the screen too much after they’ve done their school work, maybe that’s ok right now’,” said Tsioles.

Richard Roell is a member:
[Video] Local counselors share suicide prevention efforts as new national program rolls out
KGW
Lifeworks Northwest is one of the groups working to change this. It provides mental health services across Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. It has pushed its Zero Suicide Initiative since 2015. Rich Roell with Lifeworks has been a licensed clinical social worker for more than 20 years. He said he was inspired to help people through his own experience seeking mental health support as a young adult. “It saved my life,” Roell said. “You absolutely are not alone…It can be difficult to talk about.”

Robert Ciampi is a member:
[Video] COVID-19 fatigue is real; suggestions on how to combat it
WTVF
“[Fatigue] can be internal, where you feel like you’ve got these sandbags on your shoulders and you can’t take another step,” added Bob Ciampi. Ciampi is a licensed clinical social worker and says the feeling is something a lot of us are familiar with: burnout. The same kind you might feel at work or at home when you are overwhelmed. To ‘refill the tank,’ many people might go out for a night of fun with friends, or go to the gym, but COVID-19 has closed many of these places nationwide only exacerbating the issue.

Tab Ballis is a member:
Wilmington mental health services see more depression, anxiety during COVID-19
Jacksonville Daily News
Tab Ballis, a licensed clinical social worker and addictions specialist at Insight Wellness Services, agrees. He offers telehealth services as well, but continues to meet with clients face-to-face, mandating masks, appropriate distancing and frequent sanitizing in the office. Wearing a mask changes the therapy experience, Ballis said. “A lot of how human beings observe and interpret each other’s emotions and thoughts are by facial expression, so that’s one source of information that may be less available to both clinicians and the client,” Ballis said. “How does that affect the value of the service or the usefulness of it if the giver and the receiver of service can’t fully observe each other?”

Kristin Miller is a member:
The ABC’s of trauma: Coping strategies from Morris County webinar
Morristown Green
We may not know what to call the malaise that has gripped the country. But clinical social worker Kristin Miller, an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University, does. It’s Trauma, a many-faceted condition that is her specialty. The Rev. Alison Miller, a minister at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship who serves on The Morris County Human Relations Commission, introduced Kristin Miller, no relation, at a wide-ranging webinar last week. Having just returned from a vigil for Amani Kildea, the young black man found hanging in Lewis Morris Park last month, the Rev. Miller said the presentation was especially timely.

Gordon Capp, Michael S. Kelly, and Ron Avi Astor are members:
Social Workers Author Report on Opening Schools Safely Amid COVID-19
CSUF News Center
As school officials debate how to safely reopen schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report surveying 1,275 school social workers across the country offers insights and recommendations. Gordon Capp, a Cal State Fullerton assistant professor of social work, is one of the authors of the report, “Opening Schools Safely in the COVID-19 Era: School Social Workers’ Experiences and Recommendations,” alongside Michael S. Kelly of Loyola University Chicago, Ron Avi Astor and Kate R. Watson of UCLA, and Rami Benbenishty of Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Ann Truesdell is executive director of NASW-MT:
Legislators asked to support reentry programs
Valley Journal
Ann Truesdell, executive director of Montana Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, shared her experience of working with clients who are reentering their communities. “In our country, we have an unrealistic expectation that people can just jump back into society,” said Truesdell. “But, people need support. If the state doesn’t ensure that people have access to reentry services, we are forcing people to continue to serve a sentence even after they’ve served their time and have been released.”