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News Items – December 23, 2014

Bright Idea: An Arizona Partnership Gives Young People ‘In-House’ Legal Counsel
National Clearinghouse on Family & Youth
A unique collaboration between a youth-serving organization and a nonprofit law firm is helping homeless young people clear legal hurdles that can get in the way of signing a lease, getting a job, and other important steps to self-sufficiency.  The arrangement gives Project ALWAYS, the Arizona Legal Women and Youth Services, free space at Tumbleweed Center for Youth Development, in Phoenix. In return, the project’s lawyers provide free legal counsel to youth at Tumbleweed and clients from other Phoenix-area nonprofits who are victims of homelessness, sex trafficking and abuse.

Des Moines trailblazer celebrates 100th birthday
The Des Moines Register
While promoting social services in the state, [Catherine] Williams also served on a number of boards and received awards for her work. As a member of Delta Sigma Theta, Williams pushed a dropout prevention project, resulting in her chapter receiving the National Public Service Award from the late President John F. Kennedy. Additionally, in 2013, the Iowa Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers established the Catherine G. Williams Lifetime Achievement Award.

Former House Speaker lands job at teachers’ union
The Connecticut Mirror
Christopher G. Donovan, the former speaker of the state House of Representatives, has been hired by the state’s largest teachers’ union — the second former legislative leader to land a job at the Connecticut Education Association this winter. Donovan, who lives in Meriden, graduated from Villanova University with a bachelor’s degree in biology and has a master’s in social work from the University of Connecticut. He has also taught political science classes at the University of Hartford.

IMG_9301Haoura Rizk is a member:
Tough sell: Warning Dearborn teens of hookah’s dangers
Detroit Free Press
While tobacco use among youth has been on the decline in recent years, the exception is hookah, according to the long-time Monitoring the Future study, a national survey based at the University of Michigan on tobacco use among youth. Since 2010 when study authors began tracking hookah use, the number of 12th-graders across the USA reporting smoking it in the previous year has increased from 17.1% to 22.9% in 2014.… For a youth in the experimental stage of life, hookah is intriguing, said social worker Haoura Rizk of Woodworth Middle School. Many already talk about using it or wanting to join their older family members and friends one day with hookah. “It looks cool” to them, she said. “The water is bubbling and there’s smoke coming out.”

Barbara Kaminer is a member:
Military Suicides Have Spiked in Kentucky in Recent Years
WKMS
Suicides among Kentucky veterans and active military service members have increased the past several years. In many cases, those who have died never sought help through the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “Most of the people [military service members] that kill themselves we don’t know about,” said Barbara Kaminer, Louisville’s Robley Rex VA suicide prevention coordinator.

‘The Big Lebowski,’ ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ ‘Rio Bravo,’ ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ and More Added to National Film Registry
Variety
Shoes (1916):  Renowned silent era writer-director Lois Weber drew on her experiences as a missionary to create “Shoes,” a masterfully crafted melodrama heightened by Weber’s intent to create, as she noted in an interview, “a slice out of real life.” Weber’s camera empathetically documents the suffering her central character, an underpaid shopgirl struggling to support her family, endures daily—standing all day behind a shop counter, walking in winter weather in shoes that provided no protection, stepping on a nail that pierces her flesh. Combining a Progressive era reformer’s zeal to document social problems with a vivid flair for visual storytelling, Weber details Eva’s growing desire for the pair of luxurious shoes she passes each day in a shop window, her self-examination in a cracked mirror after she agrees to go out with a cabaret tout to acquire the shoes, her repugnance as the man puts his hands on her body, and her shame as she breaks down in tears while displaying her newly acquired goods to her mother. The film, which opens with pages from social worker Jane Addams’s sociological study of prostitution, was acclaimed by “Variety” as “a vision of life as it actually is … devoid of theatricalism.”

The author, Michelle Johnson, is a member:
Michelle Johnson: When we can’t breathe
Chapel Hill News
As a yoga teacher I have been trained to talk about the link of the breath with the various postures or movements we make with our bodies.… Eric Garner, a lifelong asthmatic, struggled for his last breath and uttered the words, “I can’t breathe,” 11 times. He lay there lifeless as six men placed him a stretcher, leg hanging off, head flopping from side to side, eyes rolled back in his head. A person in the background can be heard asking, “Why ain’t nobody doing CPR?” to which there was no response. Ain’t nobody doing CPR because we are disposable. Black lives don’t matter. How are we supposed to learn to breathe if the system that we are residing in was never meant to let us breathe or survive? How are we supposed to dismantle a system that won’t hold the people accountable who take away our breath? White supremacy isn’t going to allow us to breathe because it relies on our oppression.

Fatmata Savage is a member:
Miss Black N.J. focuses on social work
The Sentinel (North Brunswick, NJ)
A township resident who aims to serve as a positive role model for children has been named Miss Black New Jersey USA. Fatmata Savage will represent New Jersey in the Miss Black USA 2015 pageant to be held in Washington, D.C. Savage is a recipient of the Harriet Bloomfield Scholarship from the National Association of Social Workers and the Kean University Harwood Endowed Scholarship. She has served as an intern with NASW and multiple organizations, including JFK Medical Center, Haven Hospice, the Milton School in Maplewood and Adult Protective Services of Bergen County.

Janet Castellini is a member:
[Video] After Former Marine’s Killing Spree, Questions Raised About PTSD
NBC-10 Philadelphia
The Department of Veteran Affairs says Stone had post-traumatic stress disorder but that he didn’t have any suicidal or homicidal thoughts when he met with his psychiatrist on Dec. 8. PTSD is an anxiety disorder whose onset typically follows a traumatic experience involving a threat of serious injury or death. The disorder is sometimes diagnosed among veterans who return from combat exhibiting symptoms such as nightmares, chronic anxiety and fear, emotional outbursts and diminished. According to clinical social worker Janet Castellini, the symptoms of PTSD are not always immediately recognizable. “There is such a thing as delayed onset. So their symptoms may not show up for a while,” she said.

Caitlyn Ryan is a member:
HRC to Honor Pioneering Social Worker Caitlin Ryan at Time to THRIVE
HRC Blog
Dr. Caitlin Ryan has spent the past 40 years working to build happier and healthier futures for LGBTQ youth and adults and to prevent major health risks for LGBT youth. In recognition of her lifetime of work, the HRC Foundation will present her with its Upstander Award for Promoting Safety, Inclusion and Well-Being for LGBTQ Youth at the second annual Time to THRIVE conference in Portland, 13-15 February 2015.

 

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