Mary Beth Roth says the Northwestern University program has helped her husband Wolfgang, who has Alzheimer's Disease. Photo courtesy of ABC's Good Morning America.

Northwestern University researchers are testing whether spur-of-the-moment, improvisational theater could improve the well-being of Alzheimer’s Disease sufferers, according to this news article and audio segment on NPR.com.

National Association of Social Workers member Darby Morhardt, a research associate professor at Northwestern, is taking part in the project. And Mary O’Hara, a social worker at the university’s Feinberg School of Medicine Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, is also involved.

“Improv is all about being in the moment, which for someone with memory loss, that is a very safe place,” O’Hara said. “Maybe thinking about the past and trying to remember makes the person a little anxious or even a bit sad because their memory is failing. And maybe thinking about the future too much is also anxiety-provoking. So being in the moment is such a safe and a good place to be.”

Researchers said the improvisational exercises will not stop or slow the progress of Alzheimer’s Disease. However, they could improve the lives of early-stage patients.

“We’re asking people to tell us how they’re feeling about their physical health, their mood,” Morhardt said. ”How do they feel about their memory? How did they feel about their family, about their relationships? And also, how do they feel about their current situation as a whole and their life as a whole?”

There are other news articles about the Northwestern University improvisational theater program. Click here to read a recent New York Times article; click here to read an article on on Chicago’s WBEZ91.5 Web site; and click here to read an item on the treatment on ABC’s Good Morning America Website.

To learn more about how social workers help the elderly and people living with mental disorders visit NASW’s “Help Starts Here” consumer Website by clicking here.

Cheers to the New York Times for this profile of National Association of Social Workers member Elana Katz, who helps clients work through the divorce process in a collaborative way.

Katz, MSW, ACSW,  is director of the Family and Divorce Mediation Program at the Ackerman Institute for the Family in Manhattan.

“People can become as traumatized by the process itself as knowing a marriage needed to end,” said Katz, who is also divorced. “We try to operate in a nonlitigious, nonadversarial process that engages people and brings them together in a problem-solving way that helps them come out emotionally healthy.”

To learn more about how social workers help clients improve their relationships with others visit NASW’s “Help Starts Here” Relationships Web page by clicking here.

Sherry Saturno

Social worker Sherry Saturno, LCSW, DCSW, wrote a letter to the New York Times in response to its recent article on the death of Massachusetts social worker Stephanie Moulton.

Moulton was allegedly murdered by a schizophrenic client who had committed violent crimes in the past. She was the only staffer on duty at the group home when the crime occurred.

The New York Times article (to read it click here) looked at how budget cuts have adversely affected mental health care and social work staffing and likely contributed to Moulton’s death.

Here is Saturno’s response (you can read online along with other letters to the editor by clicking here).

The violence against social workers has become a risk of the profession, and one that needs to be addressed nationally. Social workers are frequently sent to dangerous situations, alone and unarmed, in neighborhoods that the police do not enter without a partner and a gun. We lack legislation at the federal level to protect social workers, and despite advocacy efforts, the Teri Zenner Social Worker Safety Act has yet to become law.

Detailed safety training for social workers who make home visits is desperately needed. The day before Stephanie Moulton was murdered in Massachusetts, another social worker, Frances Mortenson, was stabbed by a client during a home visit in New York.

Stephanie Moulton’s death provokes questions about the value we as a society place on social workers’ lives.

NASW’s Center for Workforce Studies and the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany did a survey that found that four out of 10 social workers face personal safety issues on the job. To learn more about that study, click here. NASW is also committed to improving social worker safety. To learn more click here. And the National Association of Social Workers Massachusetts Chapter Committee for the Study and Prevention of Violence against Social Workers created a general guideline to improve safety. To read the guide click here.

Stephanie Moulton. Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

The New York Times ran this in-depth article on Stephanie Moulton, 25, a Massachusetts social worker who was murdered on Jan. 20 by a mentally ill man in a group home she worked for.

The article points out how state budget cuts have harmed care for people with severe mental illnesses. Stephanie was the only residential counselor working at the group home that day.

Deshawn James Chappell, 27, who had been suffering from schizophrenia for years and committed several violent crimes, was charged with Stephanie’s murder.

There have been several reports in recent months of social workers assaulted or even killed on the job. The National Association of Social Workers’ Center for Workforce Studies and the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany did a survey that found that four out of 10 social workers face personal safety issues on the job. To learn more about that study, click here. NASW is also committed to improving the safety of social workers on the job. To learn more click here.

Devorah Weiss. Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

Cheers to the New York Times for this article on Devorah Weiss, a social work liason for Connect to Care, an initiative of the UJA-Federation of New York.

Weiss rides a minivan around Staten Island. Her job is so busy she works from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and gets by on just five hours of sleep.

Many of her clients are middle class and upper middle class Jewish New Yorkers who have fallen on hard economic times. Often Weiss makes home visits to people who would have never thought of coming to a charitable organization for help.

“She’s embarrassed, because of her high recognition, to come to my office,” Weiss said of a client who is the wife of a man who lost his successful business.

To learn more about how social workers help people from all walks of life, click here to visit the National Association of Social Workers “Help Starts Here” Web site.

The social workers all have master’s degrees, the article said. New York University also hired more mental health staff, added a 24-hour hotline, and expanded crisis clinic hours.

Six New York University students committed suicide in 2003-04, the article said. Colleges that have experienced the worst tragedies – including Virginia Tech where a gunmen killed 32 people in 2007 — are implementing the best mental health programs for students, the article said.

Social workers help clients with mental health concerns. To learn more, visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Mind & Spirit Web page by clicking here.

Carlina White. Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

Carlina White was reunited with her birth parents on Friday 23 years after being abducted as an infant from a Harlem hospital by a woman disguised as a nurse, according to this New York Times article and this account on CNN.

White had long suspected the woman who claimed to be her mother was not. So she went online to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and saw this poster.

White suspected the baby in the picture was her. After contacting authorities she took a DNA test that proved she was the missing daughter of Joy White and Carl Tyson.

Q: Social workers, should the woman who abducted and raised Carlina White be prosecuted? What services will White need to ease her reunification with her birth parents, siblings and other relatives?

Judy Esposito. Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

Cheers to the New York Times for this great article  about a triage unit for students with mental health issues at Stony Brook University.

Social worker Judy Esposito, who has experience counseling Sept. 11 widows, started the unit.

College campuses are having to help more students with mental conditions for several reasons, the article says. Medications and counseling have allowed more young people with mental illness to attend college. And there is a greater awareness of how depression, sexual abuse and other trauma can affect young people.

Esposito had to drop preparations for a Thanksgiving potluck dinner to find mental health care for a suicidal student who arrived at her office. She missed the meal but co-workers left her a plate.

“It’s kind of like firemen,” she said. “When the fire’s on, we are just at it. But once the fire’s out, we can go back to the house and eat together and laugh.”

To learn more about how social workers help people with mental health issues visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Mind and Spirit Web page by clicking here.

Betsy Clark

Do you think traveling is easy for social workers and other mental health professionals? Sometimes when fellow travelers find out what they do they press social workers for free, on-the-spot advice or counseling.

National Association of Social Workers Executive Director Betsy Clark commented about the ethical dilemma this raises in this article in the New York Times.

“You can’t ensure confidentiality if the person’s in the middle seat and you’re in the window seat,” Ms. Clark said. “And we shouldn’t provide services when it’s not in the context of a professional relationship.”

Q: Social workers, do family, friends and casual acquaintances sometimes ask you for free advice that would be better offered in a professional environment?

Brooke Jackman. Photo courtesy of the Brooke Jackman Foundation.

Brooke Jackman, 23, an assistant bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald, planned to leave the job and get a master’s degree in social work so she could help children.

But Brooke died in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, according to this article in the New York Times. Her parents found applications to social work graduate programs in her apartment.

Brooke’s dreams did not die in the rubble of the World Trade Center. Her family started the Brooke Jackman Foundation to distribute books to needy children, including homeless youth and victims of domestic violence. And to honor Brooke, the foundation hosted a nonstop reading of children’s books at the World Financial Center, which is being built at the site of the World Trade Center.

Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

The decision of many mothers to go back to work before their babies are a year old will not be detrimental to the child’s development, according to a recent study co-authored by two social work professors and a child development professor from Columbia University.

This article on the study appeared in the New York Times.

The research was done by social work and public affairs professor Jane Waldfogel, associate social work professor Wen-Jui Han, and child development specialist Jeanne Brooks-Gunn.

The study found the child of mothers who went back to work full-time during the first year performed worse on a series of cognitive tests. However, children did not have any cognitive setbacks if their working moms’ wages boosted family income significantly, the mothers picked high quality child care, or the mothers remained sensitive to their children, the study found.

To learn more about how social workers help children thrive visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Early Childhood Development Web pages by clicking here.

51-year-old Japanese widow Satomi Sato works two low-wage jobs to support herself and daughter but barely makes ends meet. Photo by Ko Sasaki for New York Times.

Japan last fall announced its official poverty line for the first time.

The move was a surprise because many Japanese claim they live in a homogenous, mostly middle class society that does not have stark divisions between rich and poor, according to this New York Times article.

In fact Japan, which sunk into economic stagnation years ago, has a 15.7 percent poverty rate. That is just below 17.1 percent in the United States.

Some social workers are concerned poor people who cannot afford to educate their children in Japan’s highly competitive educational system will pass their plight on to the next generation.

“We are at risk of creating a chronic underclass,” said Toshihiko Kudo, a board member of Ashinaga, a nonprofit group based in Tokyo that helps poor children and orphans.

Mark Courtney

The outlook for the 30,000 foster children in the United States who ”age out” of the system each year is bleak, according to a study led by University of Washington School of Social Work researcher Mark Courtney. Many have no family support.

A New York Times article citing the study said only half will be employed by the time they reach their mid ’20s. Sixty percent of men will be convicted of a crime. Four out of 10 women who were formerly foster children will be on public assistance. And only six out of 100 former foster children will be attending community college.

To read the full article click here.

Possible solutions for this problem include encouraging birth families to stay involved with foster children and using mentors to help guide newly emancipated youth.

To learn more about how social workers help visit the National Association of Social Workers “Help Starts Here” Adoptions and Foster Care Web pages by clicking here. NASW member Matt Anderson is also working on a documentary on the plight of aged-out foster children. To find out more click here to read his interview with SocialWorkersSpeak.org.

“Social workers are often among the first to respond to disasters both nationally and abroad,” says Elizabeth Clark, PhD, ACSW, MPH, executive director of NASW. “The people of Haiti need our help now more than ever, and we are committed to providing any assistance we can to one of the world’s poorest countries during this terrible tragedy.”

To learn more about NASW’s earthquake response and how you can help click here.
Here’s a round-up of social work news related to the earthquake. Please send us more tips:

Ex-Pasco resident bringing hope to Haiti
The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA)
“(Social worker) Brittany Hilker knew from the time she was a kid growing up in Pasco that she wanted to help people in need. So after graduating last year from Eastern Washington University, the 25-year-old moved to Haiti where she found an outlet for her generous spirit — the Hope for Haiti Children’s Center.”

Not Too Soon for Mental Health Care in Port-au-Prince
Huffington Post
“Naomi Levitz, a social worker on our team, has worked closely with Mabo for several years and when we arrive, she is quickly surrounded by a swarm of joyous children.”

Quake Victims Starving
Decatur Daily
“Leslie Loyd struggled to find words to describe what she saw in Haiti two months after a devastating earthquake. ‘It looks like the Apocalypse, really,’ she said. Loyd earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from Auburn in 2009 and expects to graduate next year from University of Alabama at Birmingham with a degree in international public health, focusing on long-term hunger relief and development.”

Older Adult Specialists Travel to Haiti to Provide Needed Care to Vulnerable Nursing Home Residents
Newswise
“Two months after the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, the needs of older adults in the region remain an urgent priority. Dr. Martin Gorbien, a geriatrician, and Lauren Kessler, a licensed clinical social worker, both from Rush University Medical Center, will be among the first older adult specialists to travel to Haiti to provide care at make-shift nursing homes.”

Haiti’s Excluded
The Nation
“Ruth Derilus had seen her share of tragedy. A 33-year-old iron-willed social worker trained by Haiti’s Papay Peasant Movement, she twice helped organize relief efforts when massive floods devastated the city of Gonaïves and the surrounding countryside. But nothing would prepare her for the tribulations she would face after the earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince on January 12 of this year.”

SCCPSS School Social Workers Raise Money for Red Cross
WSAV 3  TV (Savannah, Ga. and Hilton Head, SC)
“It was an enthusiastic afternoon Thursday at the Savannah-Chatham County school district’s Bull Street offices.The school social workers hosted a silent auction complete with dinners out, hotel stays, artwork and more. All of the money raised is going to the American Red Cross for the Haiti relief efforts.”

Social workers play detective to reunite families
USA Today
“Social workers and community activists in Haiti are going to orphanages, hospitals, camps and even the medical Navy ship USNS Comfort on the trail of parents of children found alone after last month’s devastating earthquake.”

Annette Vander Ploeg: We were first responders to Haiti’s earthquake
Democracy for New Hampshire
“I, a clinical social worker by profession, assisted the nurse practitioners in numerous ways, scribing, blood pressure, weighing. Not speaking Kreole, communication was through eyes and touch and a few French words. The poverty and hard lives of these people were staggering. Their kindness and strong spirit were inspiring.”

Helping Haiti Heal
Student Life: Washington University in St. Louis
“While in Haiti conducting research, Washington University Assistant Professor of Social Work Lora Iannotti was caught in the earthquake that left an estimated 200,000 people dead…”

Local nonprofit strives to nourish infants of Haiti
The St. Louis American
“Two days before the Jan. 12 earthquake killed more than 200,000 people, Lora Iannotti, Ph.D., nutrition and public health expert from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University, traveled to Port-au-Prince and Leogane, Haiti, to collaborate with Meds and Food for Kids on research regarding undernutrition and disease prevention in young children.”

Agency needs caseworkers who speak Creole
The Tampa Tribune
“Do you speak Creole? Have a background in social work? If so, Lutheran Services Florida desperately needs you – as either an employee or a volunteer.”

Bringing Hope, and Help, to a Battered Land
The Boston College Chronicle
“Alison Quinn, a student in the Graduate School of Social Work and Connell School of Nursing joint degree program, is preparing to put her skills to work in a place where they are sorely needed. On Feb. 21, she will head off to Haiti with Circle of Hope www.circleofhopeonline.org, an organization of doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses and medical staff that regularly goes to Leogane, a city outside of Port au Prince.”

Professor tells story of traveling with Haitian Orphans
The Pitt News
“Edward Sites, a professor in Pitt’s School of Social Work (and National Association of Social Workers member), was growing weary. He had not eaten or slept since departing from Pittsburgh hours ago. His energy faded as he unloaded and arranged medical supplies for nearly five hours. He was waiting for politicians to convince the Haitian government to allow Americans Jamie and Ali McMutrie and their colleagues to take 54 orphans into the United States.”

Local efforts spur more Haiti relief
Traverse City Record-Eagle (Michigan)
“A Haiti benefit concert is scheduled for Feb. 17 at Kilkenny’s. The concert is sponsored by Phi Alpha, a social work honors society student group through Ferris State University, and Kilkenny’s Irish Pub.”

Social worker helps relief staff handle the emotional trauma of Haiti
The Baltimore Sun
“Contino, a clinical social worker, was dispatched to Haiti to address the emotional trauma of the Baltimore-based (Catholic Relief Agency’s) large staff, which includes 300 Haitians and a core group of expatriates.”

In Disaster, Tensions Ease Between an Island’s Rivals
New York Times
“Like almost anyone from Hispaniola, the island uncomfortably shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Paloma Rivera is acutely aware that the two nations distrust each other, complain about each other and cite grievances about each other going back well over a century. Yet here she was, a Dominican, clearing garbage and digging latrines in a slum in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to help survivors of the earthquake find a place to pitch their tents.’Maybe this earthquake, even with its tragedies, can do some good by making us a little less distant from each other,’ said Ms. Rivera, 24, a social worker who joined thousands of other Dominicans in loading emergency food and medicine into their vehicles and driving here.”

Dunlap native aids Haiti
PJStar.com (Illinois)
“When Dunlap resident Kelly Scott joined Meds and Food for Kids as an intern, she did not expect her first project to be Haiti’s post-earthquake relief efforts. Scott is pursuing a dual master’s degree in business administration and social work at Washington University in St. Louis.”

Area Students Pitch In for Haiti
Louisburg Herald (Kansas)
“The student council at Louisburg High School is collecting money this week to be donated, and Sara McIntire, social worker at BES and Rockville Elementary School, came up with a plan of her own. Working through Heart to Heart International, a non-profit organization based in Olathe, McIntire is collecting care kits to be sent to Haiti. Families construct the kits themselves and package them in a one-gallon plastic storage bag, along with $1 for shipping.”

In Miami’s Little Haiti, nothing to do but work, wait, hope, pray
Los Angeles Times
“At the Haitian Relief Information Center hastily set up in the heart of Little Haiti, county social worker Shirley Sieger was, in theory, there to help …”

Local woman worries over Haitian friends as aid efforts take form
Las Cruces Sun-News
“… are in Port-au-Prince,” said Burke, who works at the Gospel Rescue Mission in Las Cruces and recently earned her master’s degree in social work. …”

Mass. student on trip to Haiti
Nashua Telegraph
“The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester reports that Gengel is a 19-year-old sophomore majoring in social work. Comments from unverified accounts will be …”

Haitian Orphans Expected Tonight in Pittsburgh
Philly.com
“A plane carrying a medical team left Pittsburgh for Haiti today, and it is expected to return tonight with a group of orphans from a facility run by two sisters from western Pennsylvania…The flight also includes Ed Sites, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, along with a pediatric nurse and a physician assistant from Excela Health Systems based in Westmoreland County.”

Haiti Relief effort group shifts into high gear
New Haven Register
“Mary Lou Ryder-Larkin, who works full-time in the pediatric emergency department of Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx section of New York, is medical director of Haiti Marycare, a group that since 1994 has delivered medical, educational and humanitarian relief to the poorest people of Haiti. The group was founded in 1994 by New Haven resident Sherman Cassidy Malone…These days, Malone, a licensed clinical social worker with a specialty in post-traumatic stress disorders and clinical director of the New Haven Family Alliance, is quick to answer the telephone in hopes of news, but often the connection disappears.”

Elation turns to anxiety for one Mass. family
Boston.com
“A Rutland couple’s relief and celebration that their daughter had been located alive in Haiti turned to shock and disbelief last night when they learned that a mistake had been made and she was still missing…Britney Gengel is studying social work, relatives said.”

Haiti Children Orphaned After Quake
WAAYTV.com
“Social workers say Haiti has always had a large number of children needing to be adopted, but after last week’s earthquake the number of orphaned children has surged.”

Quake’s tremors felt close to home
The Boston Globe
“It was an amazing thing for them to do, to embrace us like this,” said Exilhomme, a 33-year-old social worker who is president of A Better Tomorrow International Charities Inc., a social service agency for the Boston-area Haitian Community.

Haiti Orphan Adoption: Ensuring a Successful Transition
PR Web
“Haiti adoption interest has spiked after the disastrous earthquake and aftershocks in Haiti. In response to the crisis, you are invited to listen in on this discussion regarding the orphans being adopted out of this country. Heather T. Forbes, LCSW and Dr. Ronald Federici discuss the dynamics in transitioning these children from disaster to safety and security.”

Photo of Haitian earthquake refugees courtesy of CNN.

Carlos Lopez and social worker Liz Johnson search for relatives of foster children. Photo by Nicole Bengiveno of the New York Times.

Instead of finding adoptive homes for foster children, some agencies now try to place children with relatives when parents are not capable of caring for them.

The New York Times article, “Detectives’ quest: Find relatives of foster kids,” looks at the work of the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition in St. Louis. That organization uses a detective and social workers to track down relatives.

“The lost relatives are a largely untapped resource for adoption,” director Melanie Scheetz said. ”The system has overlooked all these amazing, strong people who are out there and willing to help.”

To read the full story click here.

To learn more about how social workers help foster children visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Adoptions and Foster Care Web page by clicking here.

Q: When parents are not capable of caring for children, do you think it is better to place foster children with relatives rather than  non-related foster parents?

Students walk down the hall at Morton Alternative High School in Chicago. Photo by Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative.

We commend the New York Times for running a Chicago News Cooperative article on the Morton Alternative High School.

A team of social workers at the Chicago school for teenagers with disciplinary problems uses individual and group therapy to help young people cope with the stress. Most come from neighborhoods where gangs, violence, and crime are rampant.

“Nobody here has a ‘Little House on the Prairie’ background,” said Matt Landa, one of the social workers. “But they are amazing to work with…when I don’t feel like pulling out my hair.”

The program at Morton may be adopted by schools in other parts of the nation. To read the full article click here.

And to learn more about how social workers help teenagers visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Youth Development Web page by clicking here.

The same rule likely applies to college professors, social work, art, fashion and therapy, according to two sociologist who did a study on typecasting in careers. Political liberals tend to flock to these professions because there is already a wide public perception that people who share a left-leaning political slant work in these fields.

Conservatives tend to work in law enforcement, farming, dentistry, medicine and the military because they believe they will find like-minded peopel there, according to sociology researchers Neil Gross and Ethan Fosse. Gross is at the University of British Columbia and Fosse is a doctoral candidate at Harvard University.

“The irony is that the more conservatives complain about academia’s liberalism,” Gross said, “the more likely it’s going to remain a bastion of liberalism.”

To read a New York Times article on the study click here. To read the full study click here.

Q: Do you think it is true people in social work tend to be more liberal? Are you a conservative or do you know conservatives who are social workers?

A recent article on 18-year-old Elsa Sanchez is just another example. Sanchez, a former student at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, was painfully shy and didn’t participate in many activities. A social worker referred her to the Children’s Aid Society, where Elsa entered a program that helped her build confidence, improve grades, and go on to college.

“I was always in that shell, but thanks to the Corporate Workplace Program, I somehow broke out of it,” Elsa said.

Our only quibble is that the New York Times didn’t identify the social worker who reached out to Elsa! To read the full story click here.

Photo of Elsa Sanchez courtesy of the New York Times.

To learn more about how social workers help teenagers, visit the National Association of Social Workers “Help Starts Here” Youth Development Web page by clicking here.

Jeers to the New York Times for this profile of Marina Draghici, a costume and set designer who transformed Mariah Carey into social worker Ms. Weiss in the film “Precious.”

The article praised Draghici for making Mariah Carey a “drab” social worker with a moustache.

Some social workers  left comments on SocialWorkersSpeak.org criticizing Carey’s appearance in the film because it perpetuates the stereotype that social workers are dowdy, style-challenged people (See our “Social Workers in Film Slideshow” entry).

For instance, Loretta Etienne wrote:

“The social worker characters are usually great people with diverse backgrounds that help them better perform their work. In short, the characters are great but I usually see the drabbed hair, 1980s styled social worker being portrayed as the norm as if this is the last career that a vibrant young man or woman would have wanted. I have a problem with that. Most of us are young, love our work and love life which shows in our outwardly appearance.”

Now at least social workers know who to blame for Carey’s looks in the film.

Photo of Marina Draghici courtesy of New York Times.

Tareese and Tyree Seabrooks. Photo by Sharon McCaffrey.

We like this New York Times article by Sharon McCaffrey about a  New Jersey program that helps children build emotional and social skills. McCaffrey, who is training to be a social worker, is raising money for the Family Connection PrePARE iniative. She talked to Tareese Seabrooks, a mother  who said the program helped her bond more with her son Tyree after her newborn infant and mother died.

To find out more about how social workers help families thrive or deal with grief visit the National Association of Social Workers “Help Starts Here” Kids and Families Web page and Grief and Loss Web page.