Social work professor educates on elder abuse during lecture series
Downtown Devil
ASU Social Work professor Robin Bonifas detailed the facets of elder abuse, which can include physical, sexual, emotional, psychological and verbal abuse.

USC College of Social Work launches center for low-income neighborhoods
The Gamecock
Jeremy Aaron | The Daily Gamecock For College of Social Work professors Darcy Freedman and Ron Pitner, Tuesday evening’s kickoff celebration for the Community Empowerment Center (CEC) in Columbia’s Gonzales Gardens and Lyon Street neighborhoods was the first step in bringing months of planning into fruition.

Domestic abuse victim shares her difficult past
The Statesman
Rachel, A social work student, speaks to students about domestic abuse Thursday, on the TSC Patio. During the first part of her speech, Rachel wore the red and black her ex-husband forced her to wear before she ran away from him.

Once homeless, now independent at 19
Springfield News-Leader
Stokes takes classes at OTC and hopes to become a social worker. Rare Breed is an offshoot of The Kitchen, a local charity dedicated to addressing poverty and homelessness in the area. Rare Breed first began in 1999 to address the issue of homeless teens who couldn’t get access to needed services. At 17, teens can legally be on their own but are too young to be served by most adult outreach programs and too old to access state children’s services.

NAACP leader talks of Troy Davis execution
Baltimore Sun
Jealous told a group of social workers and teachers Saturday who were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the University of Maryland School of Social Work that they could use Davis’ experience to shape their own life journeys.

Letters: Bullying of Gay Students, and Suicides
The New York Times
It should come as no surprise that, according to 2008 data from the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of suicide attempts among gay and lesbian youth is two to four times that of other high school students.

UT Arlington names professorship in social work for slain officer
Fort Worth Star Telegram
ARLINGTON — The University of Texas at Arlington has named a $250,000 endowed social-work professorship for police officer Jillian Michele Smith, who was fatally shot in December by a man who killed his ex-girlfriend at the same time.

WPATH Releases New Standards of Care for Trans Patients
Just Out
Though long overdue, this condemnation of gender-conversion or gender-reparative psychotherapies sets a new ethical standard for the mental health professions. Sexual orientation conversion therapies have been rejected by the American Psychiatric Organization, the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, the National Association of Social Workers and many other professional associations for over a decade. Yet the mental health and medical professions have maintained a double standard for trans, transsexual and gender nonconforming people victimized by analogous gender-reparative therapies that are equally harmful.

County mental health center to get interns
Auburn Citizen
AUBURN — Nursing and social work students are set to rotate through the Cayuga County Community Mental Health Center once more after a vote of approval Thursday from the county Legislature’s Health and Human Services committee.

Change upsets providers of mental health care
Tampabay.com
“It really looks like a lose-lose type of proposition for the clinicians,” said Jim Akin, executive director of the National Association of Social Workers Florida Chapter.

Dogs help veterans with PTSD cope, improve
York Daily Record
Little study exists on the effectiveness of dog training in treating PTSD, because “it’s still too new,” said Tom Murray, a readjustment counseling therapist and a licensed clinical social worker with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

A Transgender Man of Color Shares his Story
Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
James Newton, 29, of Norcross, Ga., a suburban community near Atlanta, got a rude awakening into what it sometimes means to be a black man in America. Moments after officially getting his name changed from his female birth name at the county courthouse, he noticed a woman looking back at him in the parking lot.

With Help After Storm, a Chance to Give Back
New York Times
Ms. Heintz and the staff — two psychiatrists, two psychologists and a clinical social worker for about 300 clients — are reaching out to the wives of the fishermen, holding focus groups to learn about their needs and teaching them breathing techniques and other coping mechanisms.

UC awarded contract for children’s mental health treatment
The News Record
The University of Cincinnati’s School of Social Work will soon be lending its expertise to Clermont County after being awarded a $1.1 million contract to evaluate a new mental health program in the county.

USC To Study Local Children Of Military Members
KGTV San Diego
According to USC’s School of Social Work, the program will monitor and address the social, academic and emotional challenges faced by children whose parents are deployed.

Column: Health care bill helps, but medical costs are still sickening
MLive.com
That dovetails with another recent survey, this one by the Association of Oncology Social Work. They found that two-thirds of cancer patients experienced financial hardships due to medical bills.

‘Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality’ Is a Huge Homophobic Fraud
Huffington Post
Ten Myths pushes the inaccuracy that a man who molests a boy is automatically gay even though the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Child Psychiatrists and the Child Welfare League of America, all say that the homosexuality and pedophilia are not linked.

Slaying of Citizen of the Year stuns Eastern Shore
The Virginian-Pilot
She received a degree in social work from Norfolk State University and her master’s from Ohio State University.  She was a board member of Eastern Shore Rural Health System and part owner of Therapeutic Intervention, where she worked with at-risk kids.

County Children & Youth ordered to provide info to social workers
York Daily Record
Jenna Mehnert, executive director of the state branch of the National Association of Social Workers, said Pennsylvania’s a bit lax when it comes to standards for social workers.

Social worker sees kids’ stress
Norwich Bulletin
Carolyn Trasko, a social worker in Preston who has spoken about families and stress, said children are reflecting an increased level of stress as their families struggle with issues such as financial problems.

EDITORIAL: Social worker could be influence
The Daily News Journal
With that partly in mind, Murfreesboro City Schools Director Linda Gilbert hired Tonya Hobbs last week as the system’s social worker to focus on the “whole child.”

New VA Rule to Help Vets with PTSD
New America Media
The rule change, which the New York Times reports could take affect as early as Monday, would eliminate the need of returning soldiers diagnosed with PTSD to document specific events, called stressors, in order to receive disability compensation.

House Calls For Elderly Could Relieve Squeezed ‘Sandwich Generation’
NPR
Older folks with lots of chronic illnesses aren’t the only ones who could benefit from a Medicare experiment funded through the new health law that will send doctors and nurse practitioners to visit them in their homes.

Vietnam Child-Abuse Case Exposes Lax Protection Services
TIME
In May, social work was officially recognized as a profession, a vital legal distinction in Vietnam’s communist society, in which nothing can happen without the central government’s assent.

Pressing for the passage of the Massachusetts Transgender Civil Rights Bill
Bay Windows
Rebekah Gewirtz of the National Association of Social Workers, Massachusetts Chapter, spoke after Springer. Gewirtz described the roll of social workers in the fight for transgender rights, explaining that social workers often work with transgender people, and they understand the difficulty that transgender people experience in their lives every day.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, left, and Eric Stonestreet play Mitchell and Cameron, a gay couple on "Modern Family." Photo courtesy of ABC.

Television programs are increasingly featuring gay and lesbian characters.

For instance, the award-winning comedy “Glee” (Tuesdays at 9 p.m. Eastern on Fox) has a gay storyline and in tonight’s episode of “Modern Family” (Wednesdays at 9 p.m. Eastern on ABC) father Jay (actor Ed O’Neill) must confront the possibility one of his best friends Shorty (Chazz Palminteri) is homosexual.

Social workers have long supported the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. To learn more, visit this National Association of Social Workers Web site section on this issue. Which leads to our poll:

Johnson worked as a social worker for 30 years and was one of the first social workers to push for programs for people afflicted with AIDS. She is also a key Democratic Party supporter and long time activist for women, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.

GLT asked Johnson, who lives in San Diego, why she chose social work:

“Well back in those days, there were very few things that a woman could do. I wanted a college education, and I wanted a graduate degree but the choices were very limited. I didn’t want to be a nurse because I didn’t like blood. And I didn’t want to be a teacher because I didn’t have much patience with children, and I was too noisy to be a librarian. So I chose to be a social worker.”

Visit this National Association of Social Workers Web site section to find out how social workers help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.

Photo of Beau Bridges on "The Closer" courtesy of TV Guide.

Actor Beau Bridges will guest star on tonight’s episode of the crime drama “The Closer” (9/8c TNT) as “Georgette,”  a well respected detective who had a sex change operation. Watch a KTLA-TV interview with Beau Bridges on the role.

Social workers often help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people navigate challenges in their lives (Check out the National Association of Social Workers’ Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues Web page).

SocialWorkersSpeak.org invites you to watch “The Closer” tonight and tell us what you think about Bridge’s portrayal. For those who miss the show, episodes are usually posted online. We’ll put that link up as soon as we can.

Catherine White-Holman. Photo courtesy of Vancouver Sun.

Our regards  to the Vancouver Sun in Canada for their moving profile of Catherine White-Holman, a pioneering social worker who helped provide health care to the community and was an advocate for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people. White-Holman, 55, recently died in a plane crash.

To read the full story click here.