Stars & Stripes and … Substance Abuse — Military Interventions
from Social Work Today
 As military forces involved with Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan near a planned "draw down" phase, social work’s task of assisting servicepersons in their quest to recover, rebuild, and reintegrate into American society becomes more prominent.
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Kotlowitz, Olympics…
from NASW IL
 Unfortunately September has been another violent month in Chicago, taking the lives of more of our young people in communities around Chicago. It was against this back drop that I had the opportunity to attend the morning session of a one day conference entitled, "Chicago Stories: Violence and the Ethics of Urban Health Care."
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Downturn Weighs on Poor
from The Wall Street Journal
Poverty rose in the West and Midwest last year, as slowdowns in housing and manufacturing sent more families below the poverty line, according to a Census Bureau report. The report, part of the agency's annual American Community Survey, was the latest to measure the recession's toll on low-income families, after a boom in which low-skilled workers relied on plentiful jobs and overtime -- often in construction and retail -- to raise their incomes and prospects.
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After a Death, the Pain That Doesn't Go Away
from The New York Times
Each of the 2.5 million annual deaths in the United States directly affects four other people, on average. For most of these people, the suffering is finite — painful and lasting, of course, but not so disabling that two or 20 years later the person can barely get out of bed in the morning. For some people, however — an estimated 15 percent of the bereaved population, or more than a million people a year — grieving becomes what Dr. M. Katherine Shear, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia, calls "a loop of suffering."
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Nursing Homes as Institutions -- Contact the Chicago Tribune
from NASW IL
The image lumps mental illness in with the most violent of crimes. We agree that far too many people with mental illness are housed in Illinois nursing homes. But here at Thresholds we’re very concerned that the media are implying a correlation between severe mental illness and violent crime in nursing homes. The Tribune is focusing on nursing homes as being unsafe places, and they aren’t focusing on the sad reality that people with mental illness are not getting services but instead being institutionalized.
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Social Work Profession Faces Formidable Challenges
from Baylor University
The encroachment upon the social work profession by other professions, notably human services, will be the "real test" of the profession, according to Julia Watkins, executive director of the Council of Social Work Education, the national accrediting body for social work higher education.
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Chicago AIDS Charity Facing Scrutiny Over Spending
from the Chicago Tribune
Four years ago, the Let's Talk, Let's Test Foundation helped persuade Illinois legislators to spend $3 million a year to fight the spread of AIDS in African-American communities. The Chicago not-for-profit organization, founded by state Rep. Connie Howard, D-Chicago, went on to get $1.2 million in taxpayer money from that program, called the African American HIV/AIDS Response Fund.
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Family Mental History Shadows Future Children
from MSNBC
Patrick Tracey watched helplessly as his two older sisters, mother and grandmother were all felled by the brutal blow of schizophrenia. "It hits like a comet, the impact is so devastating," says Tracey, who spent his 20s fearing inheriting the disease himself, and later, watching romantic relationships fizzle over his reluctance to pass that burden onto any children. "Even though I could still have children, I won’t," she added.
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Young and Suburban, and Falling for Heroin
from The New York Times
The kids weren’t all right. They lived in the same comfortable Long Island town and were barely in their teens when they took their first hit of marijuana or sip of alcohol, propelling them on dark journeys they couldn’t seem to escape. Within a couple of years, they were in heroin’s grip. This new wave of heroin abuse has officials grappling to understand.
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Study: Gay Couples as Fit to Adopt as Heterosexuals
from Reuters
Gay or straight, the sexual orientation of adoptive parents does not have an impact on the emotional development of their children, according to a new study. But researchers said that if parents were satisfied with the adoption process, had a stable income and functioned well as a family the risk of emotional problems in children were reduced.
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Dignity in Dying
from Newsweek
Long gone are the days of the cowboy gently closing his slain buddy's eyes and moving on. When someone dies at home, a licensed professional must determine that the person is indeed dead. This should be worked out in advance with the doctor, but we have a way of disappearing at crucial moments. If this happens, the only option is to do what my friend did and call an ambulance—for a dead person. There are other annoyances: the death certificate must be completed in black ink (using only certain approved diagnoses), an undertaker needs to be selected, and law enforcement must be called to establish that no foul play occurred. As happened with my friend, officers may arrive ready for trouble—suspects, motives—and meet only a saddened family.
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