Whether we're threatened by the second or the third spike of this persistent and deadly COVID-19 pandemic, parents are again faced with school closings and re-openings that have them confused and in doubt. Is their child better off at home being schooled on-line or attending their local brick and mortar school with their classmates and teachers?
Topics: education, Covid-19, Pandemic, children, CDC Decision Tree
Only social workers who deal with childhood hunger every day realize how devastating the COVID-19 pandemic has been for millions of everyday school children who attend school with your children and mine. For many of your children’s classmates, not attending in-person school has meant missing 5 essential meals a week and, in many cases, the bulk of their nutrition.
Topics: education, hungry children, social workers in education, Covid-19
The new Education Week Research Center report, Quality Counts 2019, synthesizes 39 indicators that capture a range of school finance, academic achievement, and socioeconomic factors that affect the quality of state school systems. Southern states with high poverty rates dominate the lower rankings, but overall, 32 states earn grades between C-plus and C-minus. Why does the U.S. educational system consistently get low marks for student academic achievement?
Topics: education, social workers, social workers in education
We recently conducted an informal poll of the social workers we deal with every day and asked them what they thought was the #1 social malady threatening the country today. Their answer might surprise you; more than the opioid epidemic; more than veterans affairs; more than homelessness; more than woman’s rights; more than economic imbalance; more than education issues; more than civil rights; more than the environment; the problem that was cited more than any other was – STUDENT DEBT!
Topics: Government, social, education, student debt, social workers
A comprehensive study of newspapers in the United States found that 516 rural newspapers closed or merged from 2004 to 2018. In metropolitan areas, 1,294 newspapers were shuttered during the period, making a national total of 1,810 papers that ceased publication.
Topics: Government, Nonprofit General, education, nonprofit, newspapers
At a recent college career day, this troubling question was asked repeatedly; “What do social workers do?” The question was troubling because it came with the realization that most college age students have no clear idea what social workers do. They are, therefore, less inclined to pick social work as a career choice.
Topics: education, social services, social workers, what social workers do, social worker cliff notes
Positive Tomorrows, an Oklahoma City non-profit, is opening a private school for homeless children that was designed by the kids themselves. That’s right. A private school for homeless (not privileged) children.
Topics: Child Welfare, education, nonprofit mission, nonprofit, social workers, homeless students
Remember taking film to the drugstore to get it developed? Or hustling over to Blockbuster on a Friday night to rent films for the weekend? How about “looking up” facts for your homework papers in the Encyclopedia Britannica? Or spending rainy Saturdays in the library writing your thesis?
Ahhh…the good old days. Whatever happened to books printed on paper and bound between covers with printer’s glue? The world has gone digital and library collections are gradually becoming obsolete. How long has it been since you visited a library?
Topics: Nonprofit General, social, education, nonprofit, social workers, libraries, American library
It is a serious misperception to view social workers as low paid civil servants who push paper on behalf of the less fortunate and perhaps undeserving. Social workers occupy a unique position in our social fabric.
From the very outset, the history of social work is populated with empathetic leaders who, upon discovering profound human suffering, not only offered a helping hand but immediately set out to change the social conditions contributing to the suffering. Social work's earliest pioneers - Florence Kelley, Alice Hamilton, Julia Lathrop, Sophonisba Breckinridge, and Grace and Edith Abbott, among others—laid the foundation of the profession's social leadership role and, to this day, this inclination to activism sets social workers apart from other civil servants.
Topics: mental health, education, leadership, social workers, public health, human kindness, civic leaders, Dorothea Dix, Council on Social Work Education
In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In August 2018, there were 62,166 homeless people, including 15,189 homeless families with 22,511 homeless children, sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system. The number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is now 79% higher than it was ten years ago, and families make up three-quarters of the homeless shelter population.
Topics: Global Vision Technologies, Homeless & Food Pantry, education, case worker stress relief, caseworkers, social services software, social services, understanding clients, social workers, homeless students, New York City
Global Vision Technologies helps human services agencies take control of their information and make good decisions running their agencies and protecting those they serve. We bridge the gap between human and services.
