News Items – January 6, 2015
Laws Proposed to Protect Trans Youth As Leelah Alcorn’s Death Rallies Thousands
The Advocate
There is now a change.org petition aimed at doing just that, by enacting what is being called Leelah’s Law. The Transgender Human Rights Institute, based in Princeton, N.J., issued a news release on the transviolencetracker.org website: “We the petitioners call upon the President of the United State Barack Obama, and the Leadership of the House and Senate to immediately seek a pathway for banning the practice known as ‘transgender conversion therapy’. We ask that you name the bill in memory of Leelah as the Leelah’s Alcorn Law and protect the lives of transgender youth.” The organization cites several leading authorities who have taken a stand against conversion therapy, including the National Association of Social Workers, who wrote that it “cannot and will not change sexual orientation.”
Caitlin Ryan is a member:
The transgender life: What to know, say and understand
CNN
Take some time and get information. Check out college English professor Jennifer Finney Boylan’s book “Stuck in the Middle with You: Parenthood in Three Genders.” Finney Boylan transitioned from male to female. Experts also point to the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University, which offers support and a wealth of information to help keep families talking and together. Clinical social worker Caitlin Ryan directs the project, which in the past 14 years has trained more than 60,000 families, mental health providers and clergy in the United States, China and some Latin American countries.
[Video] Sen. Kirk Expands Heroin Overdose Efforts
WTTW (Chicago, IL)
David Cohen, Director of Clinical Services at Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s Chicago office, was addicted to heroin and recently celebrated nearly 20 years sober. Read an interview with Cohen about his journey, and what he thinks is necessary to fighting the Chicago area’s heroin epidemic.… “When I was sober at 23, I was a college dropout. My recovery has taught me that I can live life one day at a time without the use of drugs. Today, I have a Master’s in social work and I’m the clinical director of one of the most reputable treatment centers in the nation.”
Carol Geithner is a member:
Don’t turn your back on these children
CNN
[By Carole Geithner –Editor’s note: Carole Geithner is a licensed clinical social worker and author of the novel “If Only” and a member of the board of Kids In Need of Defense. The views expressed are her own.] Imagine being so desperate that you decide to entrust your child to a paid smuggler to help him or her cross the border into the United States. You can’t know if your child will survive the dangerous journey through the desert, mountains or across the river. And you don’t know if he or she will be abused or deprived of air, food or water by handlers along the way.
Retired social worker shares lifelong commitment
Dayton Daily News
Born in Arkansas, Gladys Turner Finney was raised as a Baptist, but her parents enrolled her in Catholic school to give her a religious education. Her father had just a fourth-grade education, and her mother, a seventh, but they made sure Gladys had the best possible education. Eventually she made her way to Dayton for her first job after graduate school in social work. When she recalls her life, it’s evident that everything revolves around her lifelong advocacy of people, especially those in need and those to whom an injustice has been done.
Police: Homeless no more likely to commit crime
Brattleboro Reformer
The captain also said a social worker, Kristen Neuf, who is a Health Care & Rehabilitation Services of Vermont employee, works regularly with the department and officers will often bring her along when there is a case involving a homeless person. “It’s been very beneficial,” he said. “That program has been a significant asset to the police department and to the community. It enables us to provide better service to the community and frees up patrol officers.”
Seanna Crosbie is a member:
Mother’s depression tied to later delinquency in offspring
The Californian
These earlier formative years are when peers begin to have a greater influence on children, who still need their parents’ support and guidance, said social worker Seanna Crosbie, director of program and trauma-informed services at Austin Child Guidance Center in Austin, Texas. “It is during this stage that children gain approval from parents and teachers by exhibiting competencies and activities that are valued by society,” thereby developing a sense of pride and skills mastery, Crosbie said. “If children do not receive positive feedback and encouragement from their environment, they may develop a sense of low self-esteem and inferiority.”
Lisa Forman is a member:
Official: New Year’s resolutions may do more harm than good
Times Daily
Licensed clinical social worker Lisa Forman, with Caring Confidential Counseling in Phil Campbell [Alabama], said she believes people began abandoning the New Year’s resolution tradition because of unrealistic goal-setting, which is actually detrimental to achieving goals. “You don’t ever want to set yourself up for failure, and lots of times that’s what New Year’s resolutions do,” she said. “People will make goals to lose large amounts of weight or go on extravagant trips or save lots of money when, in actuality, those goals may not be realistic.
Student success is the goal of state’s top school social worker The Times (Merrillville, IN) Karen Lauper, a social worker at Clifford Pierce Middle School in Merrillville, was named Indiana’s 2014 School Social Worker of the Year at the Midwest Association of Social Workers Conference in Louisville, Ky. Lauper has worked at the school for 19 years, and was surprised at an all-school assembly last August with a nomination by her students and representatives from the Indiana School Social Workers Association.
Judy Postmus is a member:
How Money Is Used as a Weapon in Relationships
Kiplinger
Money is among the most powerful weapons of control in a relationship, but little attention is being paid to the financial aspects of domestic abuse. A poll by the Allstate Foundation found that 74% of Americans personally know a victim of domestic abuse, but 75% fail to connect it with economic abuse. “It hasn’t been studied much,” says Rutgers University social work professor Judy Postmus, director of the school’s Center on Violence Against Women and Children. “A knock-down hit in an elevator gets way more attention.”
Khrystian King is a member:
Child welfare caseloads remain too high, critics say
Telegram.com
Khrystian E. King, a DCF social worker for almost 20 years working in Worcester, said he has never seen caseloads as high as they are for as long a sustained period of time as he has since the Oliver case. In January 2014, there was an explosion of cases, he said, and a year later, though DCF has hired more people, social workers “are not having the opportunity to practice child welfare in a way that ensures efficacy,” he said.
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