Derrik Anderson is a member:
[Audio] Charlotte Talks: Ahmaud Arbery And The Danger Of ‘Running While Black’
WFAE
A young black man is shot while jogging. Over two months pass before arrests are made and charges are filed. As America grapples with yet another killing of a young black person, we ask: why does this keep happening? GUESTS: Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of history, race and public policy at Harvard University and author of “The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America”; Braxton Winston, at-large representative of Charlotte City Council; Derrik Anderson, executive director, Race Matters for Juvenile Justice.

Kris Imbrie is a member:
Career Help, Support Groups and Children’s Activities Available through Project Self-Sufficiency
Hopatcong Lake Regional News
Morning Thursday sessions feature professionals from DASI focused on healthy relationships and media literacy. Thursday afternoons are focused on parenting dilemmas addressed with the help of Licensed Clinical Social Worker and parenting expert Kris Imbrie.  Separate evening support groups are available to women and men on Mondays and Tuesdays, respectively.

Chris Budnick is a member:
How addiction recovery specialists adapted during COVID-19 pandemic
North Carolina Health News
In his 20 years at Healing Transitions, Chris Budnick has never turned away someone seeking help. But in late March after three false-positive tests for COVID-19 at the residential addiction recovery program in Raleigh, the program director made the tough call to stop all new admissions to the campuses and overnight detox. Soon after, a 71-year-old man came to the door hoping for a bed to sober up. Turned away, he fell asleep on the side of the road and Healing Transitions staff covered him with blankets. That incident stuck with Budnick, as he and other Wake County partners worked to quickly set up a remote detox center.

Alison Mohr Boleware is government relations director for NASW-TX:
They lost their jobs and insurance in the pandemic. Now they’re slipping through Texas’ health care safety net.
The Texas Tribune
The rising unemployment rate and loss of job-based insurance could also deter Texans from seeking mental health services like therapy or counseling, said Alison Mohr Boleware, government relations director for the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. “When people lose jobs or part of their household income, mental health treatment can be seen as a luxury that ‘can wait,’” she said.

Alexis Verbin is a member:
“Like the rug was ripped out from under me”: The mental health costs of coronavirus
The Denver Post
The stresses of the pandemic don’t just affect people who have a history of mental health issues. “People do not need an official mental health diagnosis in order to suffer during unprecedented times like these,” said Alexis Verbin, a therapist at WELLCORE in Lakewood. “It is very normal and natural for us as humans to experience anxiety during heightened periods of stress and uncertainty.”

Hilary Weinstein is a member:
Everyone is roller skating right now—and it turns out, it’s good for your mental health
Well+Good
“When you exercise and get fresh air, you’re increasing endorphins, which improve the mood and decrease stress,” says Hilary Weinstein, LCSW, a psychotherapist and anxiety specialist based in New York. “By gearing your attention to both the body and its surroundings, you can shift focus away from negative thought patterns and anxieties.” It can also have a tremendous effect on self-esteem.

Martha Martin-Forman is a member:
Coping with COVID-19
Fulton Sun
Many people have a narrow mental image of trauma: a soldier grappling with PTSD, a hollow-eyed refugee child. But trauma can also look like someone wearing a face mask panicking during a grocery run. “Trauma can also just be the result of stressful events, plural, that basically make us feel that we’re not safe anymore, that we live in a dangerous world,” Marty Martin-Forman, owner of Martin-Forman Consulting, said. “I think that describes COVID-19. We’ve felt overwhelmed.”

Jennifer Kelman is a member:
Will online summer camp work? A virtual path worth a try during coronavirus pandemic
USA Today
“It’s another thing that COVID-19 has taken away,” parenting expert Jennifer Kelman says. Kelman, a licensed clinical social worker and mom of 10-year-old twins, says she gets this question dozens of times every day, while she and many other families try to figure out what to do with summer camp plans. “With shelter-in-place orders, this pandemic has taken the connection away for children and adults,” she says.

Gerald Ressler is a member:
Counselors discuss ways to manage COVID-19 anxiety and anger, and how we move forward
Lancaster Online
Many of those questions are still unanswered. The associated anxiety is now combined with additional feelings, says Gerald Ressler, licensed clinical social worker at Samaritan Counseling Center. “The same anxieties are likely continuing, but these are now accentuated by some new feelings of weariness, anger or depression, and maybe even a loss of hope,” Ressler says. “We are weary because the changes to our lives have gone on longer than what most of us expected at the beginning of the stay-at-home order.”

Social Work Grad Puts Herself at Risk to Serve Others
Rhode Island College
Dickerson recognizes that her social work profession plays a big role in the passion she has to put others first. “The National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics outlines our core values as service, social justice, dignity and worth of a person, importance of human relationships, integrity and competence,” she says. “I carry these values with me as a person and as an emerging clinical social worker.” For Dickerson, life is always about caring for others, and she believes that her experience with COVID-19, personally and professionally, will leave a lasting impression on her.

Mark McGonigle is a member:
Pandemic is Prime Time to Start Meditating
Flatland
Mark McGonigle is a licensed clinical social worker with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology, and master’s degrees in both applied spirituality and social welfare. He’s been a therapist for 26 years. “Traditionally therapy has focused on how our current symptoms are the outcome of what has happened to us and how our history has shaped how we think about ourselves,” McGonigle says. “Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) does not deal directly with thoughts and memories in the traditional way… MBCT starts with a basic distrust of the thinking mind and asserts a trust in present moment awareness, accessed in commitment to periods of non-doing and heightened noticing, what is called meditation.”