Drug and alcohol use remains a severe problem among school age children, with the National Institute on Drug Abuse showing that 5.4% of 8th graders, 9.8% of 10th graders, and 14.3% of 12th graders use illicit substances, and nearly 1.3 million teens have a substance use disorder. Unfortunately, recovery treatment is often unsuccessful when teens return to their schools and are surrounded by the same peers and the same opportunities to use. Data shows that nearly 70% of students who attend recovery and return to their school will relapse in 6 months or less.
Topics: children, addiction recovery, High School, Recovery High School, National Institute on Drug Abuse
"Social workers are my collective heroes. They sit at the juncture between those with too much power and those with not enough. "
- Gloria Steinem -
Topics: social workers, what social workers do, Social Work is Essential
Not long ago, addiction recovery meant signing in to a “rehab”, attending daily meetings with your peers, intensive face-to-face therapy sessions with an addiction therapist, and reading the Big Book to guide you along the 12-Step path. The recovery process could take months or even years before the addict or alcoholic was declared ready to go it alone. Then, the pandemic.
Topics: caseworkers, Pandemic, rehabilitation, Digital Recovery, addition therapist, addiction recovery, My Strength, SMART Recovery
As tele-health becomes more prevalent in the delivery of behavioral health services during this ongoing pandemic, tomorrow’s new normal will be much more virtual than yesterdays. Even after the pandemic, services will be a combination of tele-health and in-person.
Behavioral health clinicians, now operating screen-to-screen rather than face-to-face, realized they needed guidance on engagement, assessment, intervention, and the legal and ethical considerations necessary when setting up and implementing tele-behavioral health. However, they did not foresee the hidden dangers of "Zoom Fatigue".
Topics: Technology Speak, Covid-19, Pandemic, Stanford University Study, behavioral health services, Zoom Fatique, remote communication, videoconferencing, virtual interaction, tele-health
NIJ Releases Article on OJJDP Juvenile Justice Data Collection
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has posted a new article discussing OJJDP’s Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement and Juvenile Residential Facility Census.
Both OJJDP-sponsored surveys gather information from residential placement facilities that hold juveniles who are charged or adjudicated for an offense. The article describes the work that OJJDP and NIJ are performing to improve data collection on juveniles in residential placement and the facilities in which they are held.
Topics: Juvenile Justice, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Data Collection
Case workers in Workforce Development say that unemployment in America is a result of dislocation, not motivation. Labor statistics focus on the unemployment rate and the cost of unemployment insurance to the taxpayer, but case workers focus on the causes of unemployment and the massive effort to rearrange and retrain the American labor force.
Topics: grants, caseworkers, Covid-19, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Retraining
We are taught as children that we can trust our parents, our teachers, our religious leaders, the police, the mayor, and the President of the United States. It is their duty to care for us, to mean us well, and to do only good. We can trust them; until we can’t.
Topics: caseworkers, human services, Family and Child Welfare, Child Abuse, Victim Services, veterans
We would like to kick off Social Work Month by thanking the more than 700,000 social workers nationwide for the amazing work they accomplish. These "Unsung Heroes" are truly woven into the fabric of our society. This year's theme for Social Work Month is "Social Workers are Essential" to highlight the invaluable contributions social workers make in our society, especially as this nation addresses the coronavirus pandemic.
Topics: social workers, Social Worker Month 2021, Social Workers Are Essential, Social Work is Essential
Everyone knows how the pandemic walloped the elderly in 2020. Nursing homes became the epicenter of COVID-19 deaths. No, Mr. Sinatra, it was not “a very good year” for the elderly.
Topics: Elderly/Aging Long Term Care, Covid-19, Nursing Homes, Elderly, Long Term Care
Failure to provide timely, effective medical attention for the millions of combat veterans who have served our nation is the scandal that has haunted the Veterans Administration for the past ten years; veterans dying in corridors and parking lots as they languished on waiting lists; overwhelmed VA hospitals sinking into dereliction as vets begged for help.
How could this happen? Did Congress's fail to provide a robust VA system? Was it the fault of the dedicated medical professionals who work tirelessly in VA hospitals? Were they just "burning out"?
Topics: Veterans Issues, Veterans Administration, VA