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.

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?

The Jewish Federations of North America brings together a network of 148 local federations which collectively raise and allocate more than $3 billion annually for social welfare, social services, and educational needs. The JFNA has spent three decades in an effort to create an ongoing mechanism that would productively connect local federations to a group of national Jewish organizations. Its mission was “to bring together seven national Jewish agencies and the Jewish federation network into a common space, promoting deeper relationships and creating synergy among them.”

Nonprofit's Role

There are 640,000 students currently registered in the Los Angeles Unified School District and 480,000 (75%) of them are Latinos. The LA. School Report reminds us that this past March 1st was the 50th anniversary of the big “blowout” when “thousands of young Latinos marched out of their East Los Angeles classrooms…for their right to be educated.”

The US Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) defines domestic violence as a "pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner". The definition adds that domestic violence "can happen to anyone regardless of race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or gender" and can take many forms.

It seems that society has always struggled with substance abuse. The human animal is uncomfortable with the constant torture of his normal brain chemistry and now and then seeks to escape to a more comfortable altered state. This, however, is a dangerous game. Apparently, we easily become addicted to the substances that alter brain chemistry and quickly slip into substance use disorders.