Tami Jones is a member:
[Audio] Community Conversation: The Future Of Idaho’s Fragmented Mental Health System
Boise State Public Radio
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly a quarter of Idahoans are living with a mental illness. Idaho has one of the highest suicide rates in the country. Nearly 22,500 Idahoans receive mental health treatment through Idaho’s Medicaid program.… Our guests included Rev. Bill Roscoe from the Boise Rescue Mission, Tami Jones, the CEO of Idaho Behavioral Health, Sgt. David Cavanaugh from the Boise Police Department, and Ross Edmunds, the division administrator of Idaho Department of Health and Welfare’s Division of Behavioral Health.

Pandora MacLean-Hoover is a member:
You Can Recover From a Snippy Email, But Prepare to Grovel
The Wall Street Journal
Many people apologize by saying, “That wasn’t really me”—and this is a big mistake, says Pandora MacLean-Hoover, a licensed independent clinical social worker in Lexington, Mass. “It was a part of you that you may not like, but denying it won’t help you or the other person,” she says. “Take ownership.” She offers a script: “I really value our relationship. I’m really sorry for the text I sent. I was intensely upset and wrote it in anger and haste. It was extreme and hurtful. I have had more time to think about it and hope you will give me a chance to talk about the situation in a more respectful way.”

Debbie Granick is a member:
The hardest year of parenting
News & Observer
St. Louis-area clinical social worker Debbie Granick has two daughters, ages 12 and 14, and a 16-year-old son. If anyone is walking through the fire, she is. “The worst year is the one you are least prepared for, when their behavior is most not what you had in mind,” Granick said. “It’s when you are put in the position of having to be (the) person you least like.” That person might be when you are sleep-deprived and angry at a colicky infant. Or it might be when you resist the impulse to slap a 12-year-old talking back to you, she said. “It’s when they hit on your vulnerabilities,” Granick said. “Those years are difficult for everybody.” It’s typically when parents most often turn into a version of themselves they’d like to keep hidden from the world.

Julie Miller-Cribbs is a member:
[Video] OU-Tulsa to host students and faculty from Haruv Insitute for child abuse study program
KJRH-TV
OU Tulsa is hosting students and faculty from Israel’s leading authority on child abuse and neglect. Visitors from the Haruv Institute are coming for a four-day exchange study program. They’ll discuss key topics and services related to child maltreatment. “We have a lot to learn from each other. They do a lot of great work in Jerusalem on child welfare and we do some interesting and good work here and we’re exchanging ideas and learning from each other about how to do better work in protecting vulnerable children,” said Julie Miller-Cribbs, Director of Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work.

Joy Lieberthal is a member:
[Video] As Decades of Korean Adoptions Dwindle, Identity Issues Remain
NBCNews
Joy Lieberthal, a Korean adoptee raised in Mount Vernon, NY, came to the United States in 1976 when she was six-years old. She says she knew very little about being Korean as a child, and she always saw herself as someone who was “other than other.” She credits, however, her adoptive parents with trying to instill in her and her three sisters, who are also adopted, some sense of Korean identity.… “The first thing they would say is, ‘What’s your Korean name? Why don’t you use it? You should be proud of it,’” said Lieberthal, who now works as a clinical social worker at The Juilliard School in Manhattan and has counseled adoptees and adoptive parents since 1999.

The author, Barbara B. Smith, is a member:
Money, mental health care, Medicaid and what works for NC
News & Observer
There is no money in mental health. That’s something we hear all the time. But in the world of health care, it’s clear there’s lots of money. All you have to do is look at Duke Medicine and UNC Healthcare. New medical practices are springing up everywhere. There’s clearly a buck to be made.

Research team makes progress on system to screen for trauma in foster youths
Medical Express
Researchers in the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare have completed initial efforts to learn more about adoption and the foster care system in Kansas, particularly about the challenges and facilitators of successful adoptions. The efforts are part of the Kansas Adoption Permanency Project, created to enact trauma screening and functional assessment for all children who enter foster care and improve adoption outcomes for children, families and the state.

[Video] Foster Youths Re-Writing their Past
The Chronicle of Social Change
“When you go through the system, you train yourself not to remember your life, so I only remember my life from second grade on.” — Sade, former foster youth. Sade and her siblings officially went into the system when she was 13. Her mother was a drug addict and physically abusive. That’s all Sade knew. Anger and rage become the words that identified her. Group homes added new chapters, perpetuating the tale of a violent child. A child who deserved to be locked in a small blue room with a small window as a “time-out.” Time-outs sometimes lasted months. Now, emancipated out of the system, Sade shares with us why she started to tell her story.

Child poverty in U.S. is at highest point in 20 years, report finds
Los Angeles Times
Child poverty in America is at its highest point in 20 years, putting millions of children at increased risk of injuries, infant mortality, and premature death, according to a policy analysis published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. As the U.S. emerges from the worst recession since the Great Depression, 25% of children don’t have enough food to eat and 7 million kids still don’t have health insurance, the analysis says. Even worse: Five children die daily by firearms, and one dies every seven hours from abuse or neglect.

When a Friend is Diagnosed with Breast Cancer
Ebony Magazine
When a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, it can be one of the most frightening times in her life. When she shares this information with her family and friends, it is often difficult for them to know what to say or what to do to help support her. “You don’t have to know what to say,” says Jean Rowe, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Oncology Social Worker who works as the Associate Director of Survivorship Programs for Young Survival Coalition(YSC). Rowe suggests being honest with a statement like: ‘I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do, but I want to help.’” She says that will mean so much more than not saying anything or simply disappearing.

The surprising Obamacare experiment that saved taxpayers $24 million last year
The Washington Post
Deirdre Sekulic heads Montefiore’s housing unit, which aims to find one-bedroom apartments for homeless patients who show up in the emergency room, again and again. The program is the only one of its kind in New York City. Montefiore is also an unexpected cost-saving offshoot of the Affordable Care Act — and part of an experimental effort to treat health care as more than just medicine. The dual goal: Save lives, save money. The medical center is what’s called a Pioneer Accountable Care Organization, one of 19 in the country. More simply: It’s a network of doctors, nurses and social workers who team up to deliver continuous, coordinated care to patients — and, in the process, slash government spending.