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Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Politicians are more than anxious over negative public opinion on the National Health Service, falling over backwards to say that the NHS is “safe in our hands.” Meanwhile, the Church of England is concerned about losing “market-share,” especially over conducting funerals. One way of linking these two extremely large British institutions is in terms of life-style choices.
What would be the impact if our current policy to insure safety and prevent drowning were to pay people to swim with each swimmer? No one could go swimming unless they had a paid professional, or paraprofessional, swim with them. Our present policy in human services and mental health is kind of like paying people to insure the safety and well-being of others.
Today is National Senior Citizen’s Day. It’s a time to celebrate the older, wiser individuals of our society who have achieved so much over the last several decades of their lives, and still have more of an impact to make.
I am, I suppose, part of the “cognoscenti” in the area of social identity, social bias, and social justice. I’m a tenure-track assistant professor of social work, I’m a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant, and I recently wrote a book on how to understand and overcome challenges associated with race.
Rape threats against female bloggers. A major presidential candidate calling women “pigs” and even worse. Women being deprived of basic health care from Planned Parenthood because of anti-abortion politics.
“When we get our story wrong, we get our future wrong,” David Korten wrote in Change the Story, Change the Future. If children are indeed our future, then the stories we use to educate and help them come of age are the most important stories to get right.
Protecting children from maltreatment is one of the most challenging responsibilities in social and health services. Most CPS investigations and resulting service delivery are helpful to children and families and occur without incident.
When a major obstacle is removed to our progress, idealist intellectuals like myself rejoice. I was introduced to one such obstacle in the early l970s, when a woman hiding from her abusive husband in our home told us “violence wasn’t the worst part.” Like the millions of other victimized women we have served in the ensuing years, she understood that the prevailing equation of partner abuse with domestic violence has little relation to her lived experience of oppression.
Acknowledging that they are certainly not the first to do so, four scientists, Michael Yudell, Dorothy Roberts, Rob Desalle, and Sarah Tishkoff recently called for the phasing out of the use of the concept/term “race” in biological science.
More than 70 years ago, psychologist Rene Spitz first described the detrimental effects of emotional neglect on children raised in institutions, and yet, today, over 7 million children are estimated to live in orphanages around the world. In many countries, particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the rate of institutionalization of poor, orphaned, and neglected children has actually increased in recent years, according to UNICEF.
March is National Social Work Month. This year’s theme is Forging Solutions Out of Challenges. One social worker who is forging ahead is Anderson Al Wazni of Raleigh, NC. Anderson’s research and passion explores Muslim women’s feminist identity and empowerment in her community and beyond. We sat down with Anderson to discuss her role as a social worker and future plans.
Financial entitlement is one domain of financial exploitation. In 2010 Conrad and colleagues defined financial entitlement as: a belief held primarily by adult children that they can take their older parent(s)’ money to spend on themselves without permission. Although some adult children argue that the money is their inheritance and thus already earmarked for them, using an older person’s money without permission is exploitation.
According to research conducted by Levy, Slade, Kunkel, and Kasl in 2002, the average lifespan of those with high levels of negative beliefs about old age is 7.5 years shorter than those with more positive beliefs. In other words, ‘ageism’ may have a cumulative harmful effect on personal health. But what is ageism – and what is its impact, both for society and healthcare?
Despite progress in the care and treatment of mental health problems, violence directed at self or others remains high in many parts of the world. Subsequently, there is increasing attention to risk assessment in mental health. But it this doing more harm than good?
In 2010, Israel Leija was killed by a police officer during a high speed chase, which ended when Mullenix, a police officer, stationed on an overpass, shot several bullets into Leija’s car. The chase began when the police tried to arrest Leija at a drive-in restaurant for violating parole on a misdemeanor charge. When the officer approach Leija in his car, Leija drove off, with the police giving chase, while several other officers set up tire spikes along the road to stop him.
In 1933 in the midst of Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his first inaugural address, wisely stated, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That wisdom has as much relevance today as it did during the Depression.