When we’re very busy taking care of other people, it’s easy to overlook the need to take care of ourselves. But self-care is vitally important for making sure you’re up to the challenges of being a caregiver. In order to be there for your loved ones and handle all your responsibilities, you need to keep up your health and energy levels. Here are some tips for making time for yourself in your everyday life.

 

Guns in the United States

• In 2016, firearms were responsible for more than 38,000 deaths and over 116,000 nonfatal gunshot wounds in the United States.
• The United States owns approximately 250 million guns, nearly one for each citizen, and grows about 7 million each year.
• Each year, the United States has a bit over 8,000 murders with firearms.
• According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a total of 346 mass shootings (5 or more victims) occurred in the U.S. in 2017.
• As of May 17th 2018, 101 mass shootings have already occurred this year.  

Social Work Today magazine has just published the top ten list of social workers who were nominated by their peers for outstanding performance in the past year. We are proud to reprint these inspirational comments from the finalists in their own words.

Which part of your event raises the most money?

So often we get caught up in the daily tasks of the event that we don't take the time to think through the program part of the event. But this is where most of your money gets raised? Right?

The CEOs of nonprofit agencies have always faced challenges that are uniquely theirs. These difficulties continue to change and evolve as both the industry and those who nonprofits aim to help do so as well. Even within the past five or 10 years, these challenges have proven to be unlike any others faced in years past.

 

A Former Disney Employee Tells This Story

Yeweinisht Mesfin went missing in November 2016. Her fellow Disneyland employees found her in her car in a gym parking lot. She lived in her car and that gym parking lot was her home. She would use the gym to shower and use the restroom. After suffering a heart attack, she died in her car waiting for someone to find her.

Twenty years-ago it seemed like every family in the country was struggling with a teenager suffering from an “eating disorder”. In recent years this serious social, mental health, psychological, and medical problem seems to be garnering a lot less attention. Did we lick it, or have we just stopped talking about it?

A colleague recently wrote us and noted that we rarely cover the American Indian community in this blog. She was correct. We confess that our oversight is probably a reflection of a broader cultural blindness to Native American social issues in general. Perhaps this numbed sensitivity comes from the fact that Native Americans do not make as much noise as other underprivileged minorities. It seems to be part of their native dignity to suffer in silence without complaint and, unfortunately, in American social justice “the squeaky wheel gets the oil”.

In a recent issue of Social Work Today, Kate Jackson reported this troubling statistic:

Teacher strikes are spreading across the country. In states where they are still woefully underpaid like Oklahoma and Arizona it is amazing that teachers can afford to go to work at all. But teachers in California and New York, on the other hand, are not striking strictly for pay increases. They are demanding more funding for education in general and are striking on behalf of their students who, they say, are being under-served in aging buildings without up-to-date technology, proper textbooks, or fundamental teaching aides. In other words, teachers are revolting against a perennial lack of proper funding for education across the country. How can the wealthiest country in the world fail to prioritize the education of its youth, when it is that very educational system that made it the wealthiest country in the world?