In the past twenty years, student debt has become a major social and political issue in our country. As government guaranteed student loans became more widely available, colleges began to raise their tuition rates to keep pace with the expansion boom that ready government financing created. More students required more professors and facilities to accommodate their needs, and colleges needed more money to pay for the growth. The result, of course, is that students borrowed more and more money to pay inflated tuition and fees and subsequently became burdened with overwhelming debt.

In the world of social work, learning networks are nothing new. Social workers have always exchanged information in a social setting, such as sharing referrals and resources with other social work colleagues. Social workers often photocopy and share articles from trusted journals with colleagues they are collaborating with on a project.

Through its FAMCare suite of products Global Vision Technologies helps smaller agencies participate at the big agency level by leveraging technology to amplify impact. In an article that appeared in Policy & Practice, the journal of the American Public Human Services Association, Accenture managing directors Debora Morris and Ryan Oakes present a method for amplifying the outcomes of smaller agencies through a combination of new technology and best management practices.

The BBC series Call the Midwife has been a surprising smash hit with American PBS audiences. The series features midwives Jenny Lee, Chummy Browne, Trixie Franklin, and Cynthia Miller as they live and work with nuns at Nonnatus House in London’s East End during the 1950s. The nurses experience heartache and pain as they help women through the difficult and often dangerous process of childbirth while their patients live in abject poverty.

The rise of the Internet and the proliferation of social media have changed how we access information and interact. It’s now easier than ever to do research, find resources and make connections. However, the nature of these interactions have a much different quality in the online realm than off.

As we spend more time online, these changes inevitably impact the social work field in a variety of ways, both positive and negative. While access to information and resources is more convenient than ever, Internet use can also open up users to potential privacy breaches. The following are some examples of ways social media is impacting the social work field:

Without continued congressional support and a national commitment to succeed, The Affordable Care Act will eventually falter.  Why has it been so difficult for the United States, the greatest industrialized nation on earth, to provide affordable healthcare for all its citizens? Is it political polarization, philosophical divides, economic conundrums, relentless costly innovation, government regulation, professional posturing, or a combination of all these factors that has prevented every administration since Franklin Roosevelt from tackling the problem?

Wall street investors have discovered the nonprofit world. Why are the “profit seekers” sniffing around the pressing social problems that have always been the pervue of nonprofits? Wall street calls this new investor initiative Impact Investing and reports that it is thriving. Currently impact investors have $228 billion in assets under management. “Individuals are huge drivers of the rise of impact investing,” says Amit Bouri, CEO of the Global Impact Investing Network. “They increasingly want to be a part of the solution to problems surrounding their communities and the environment. Investors pumped $35.5 billion into 11,000 deals last year, and that number is expected to grow by 8% in 2018.”

The recent passing of beloved TV personality Anthony Bourdain and fashion icon Kate Spade has pushed suicide back into the cultural dialogue spotlight. Social workers who work in suicide prevention every day remind us, however, that suicide is, and always has been, part of the human condition and not the dramatic exception that celebrity suicide seems to suggest.

Jim Langford, born and raised in the small town of Calhoun, is a faithful son of Georgia. After earning an MBA from the Harvard Business School, Jim went on to create a $2.5 billion technology company with a team of fellow alums. Then he turned his efforts to public service and began his tireless work for a better Georgia by writing the legislation to preserve Georgia’s Native American archaeological sites threatened by looters and development. Later, as head of Georgia’s Trust for Public Lands, Langford spearheaded the development of the Atlanta BeltLine, a series of multiuse paths and parks running in a rough loop around the city’s center.

Charter schools and school choice are no longer experiments. Nationwide, they have become important components of public education. Since this blog began a discussion of educational improvement almost two years ago, we have heard from countless educators, administrators, and social workers both pro and con on school choice and the advantages and disadvantages of charter schools. Today we would like to catalogue the input we have received to give you an overview of what education professionals are saying about this all-important public policy issue.