Something Positive

I feel as if I need to make a concerted effort to highlight news that doesn't suck.

News in the world of social work is not much different from everything else you see and hear - depressing stories of violence, hardship, isolation, etc. - but we do have the added bonus of our work mirroring these stories and are able to use terms like "vicarious trauma" and "compassion fatigue" with fair frequency and authenticity.

I find pictures of kittens in a barrel to be just as soothing as the next person (I want you to look at Phillip's eyes), but there have to be some stories out there, beyond simple human interest, that feature promising practice and forward-thinking policy. Converting the world to a strengths-based perspective is not an easy task.

New-ish Links

My aim is still to do this every Friday, but better to do it now so that it gets done at all.

Research / Resources:

• NYU School of Social Work: Information for Practice - I don't much care for the layout of the page - 3 columns of information, which I must read separately if I'm going to glean anything at all - but the content is excellent. Updated daily, NYU's School of Social Work provides news related to mental health, social justice, policy, substance use, etc. (you know, social worky-type topics) mostly from the US, but from other countries as well. The links to scholarly journals are particularly nice, though without subscription to a service or access via a university, the articles are not always available. Nevertheless, a very good resource to check on a daily basis.
  

• The Campbell Collaboration - This is an excellent resource. As mentioned, those in the field and not in an academic setting are often severely limited in the access they have to current research and evidence-based practice. This is a problem. Here is a solution:

The Campbell Collaboration "strives to make the best social science research available and accessible. Campbell reviews provide high quality evidence of "what works" to meet the needs of service providers, policy makers, educators and their students, professional researchers, and the general public."

• Social Policy Resources - This is simply a good list of links. News sources (traditional and otherwise), data sources, governmental sites, nonprofits, advocacy groups, welfare, health care, housing, social security, etc.
  

HIV/AIDS - Sexual Health:

• Guttmacher Institute - Focusing on sexual and reproductive health, the Institute is a fantastic resource for policy analysis and to a certain extent, research. Highly recommended.
  

• San Francisco AIDS Foundation - The Bay is usually the place to go for forward-thinking programs. The focus differs based on the city for obvious reasons, but I tend to find more applicable information and resources from SF and Oakland than New York City, for example.

"The San Francisco AIDS Foundation "is one of the oldest and largest community-based AIDS service organizations in the United States. The mission of the agency is to end the pandemic and the human suffering caused by HIV."

• Johns Hopkins HIV Guide - More a medical resource than policy/program resource, but such things are important to have.
  

• REACH LA - A youth-oriented organization focusing on programs and outreach here in Los Angeles, REACH LA often partners with LAUSD, which is how I'm familiar with them. Particularly in regard to curriculum. I still don't know a lot about the group and some of their curriculum design is not the strongest, but that's why I've added their site to the list: to learn more.
  

Power

Power

The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being
ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles and my stomach
churns at the imagined taste while my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery of magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

The policeman who shot down a 10-year-old in Queens
stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and
there are tapes to prove that. At his trial
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size or nothing else
only the color.” and
there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37-year-old white man with 13 years of police forcing
has been set free
by 11 white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one black woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they dragged her 4'10” black woman's frame
over the hot coals of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go the first real power she ever had
and line her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limps and useless as an unconnected wire
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85-year-old white woman
who is somebody's mother
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed
a greek chorus will be singing in ¾ time
“Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are.”

Audre Lorde

*"Power" is a poem written about Clifford Glover, the ten-year-old Black child shot by a co who was acquitted by a jury on which a Black woman sat. In fact, the day I heard on the radio that O’Shea had been acquitted, I was going across town on Eighty-eighth Street and I had to pull over. A kind of fury rose up in me; the sky turned red. I felt so sick. I felt as if I would drive this car into a wall, into the next person I saw. So I pulled over. I took out my journal just to air some of my fury, to get it out of my fingertips. Those expressed feelings are are that poem"-- Audre Lorde, "My Words Will Be There," in Black Women Writers, 1983

Links and Resources

It may seem as if I've abandoned this project. Not the case. However, I am overwhelmed enough by the rest of my life to have bookmarked a Lifehacker post titled: Tips to Get Blogging Done. We'll see if it helps any.

I've added links a plenty to the del.icio.us page. Generally speaking, the tags are fairly well organized. From now on I intend to post new links in a wrap-up entry on Fridays. Again, we'll see how that goes.

Because my current work is around HIV/AIDS prevention and policy, the list is quite heavy in these areas, but I like to keep my eye out for all areas of interest. That being said, I imagine the majority of my posts in the next few months will relate to health, health education, HIV/AIDS, reproductive rights, social work management, social work administration, and reflections on the work itself in which I'm involved.

I still have a list of topics and notes from months ago that I'll get to posting eventually. Step one is just writing this little update. Hopefully there will be a few more and with more substance by the end of tonight, even. I'll make use of this thing yet.

Some More Thoughts on Deliberate Self-Harm in Children and Adolescents

(Article: Hurry, J. (2000). Deliberate Self-Harm in children and adolescents. International Review of Psychology, 12, 1, 31-35.)

How would you define the following terms?
• Deliberate Self-harm
• Parasuicide
• Suicide Gesture
• Attempted Suicide
• Ambivalent Attempted Suicide
• Self-injury

Can any of these terms be used interchangeably? What are the possible effects of such ambiguity in meaning on scholarly works and evidenced-based research?

According to Hurry (2000), deliberate self-harm “implies an act, not merely thoughts about suicide. However, it does not necessarily include the wish to kill oneself”.

The World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases (1992) defines parasuicide as

"An act with nonfatal outcome, in which an individual deliberately initiates a non-habitual behaviour that, without intervention from others, will cause self-harm, or deliberately ingests a substance in excess of the prescribed or generally recognised therapeutic dosage, and which is aimed at realising changes which the subject desired via the actual or expected physical consequences. It may be used interchangeably with the terms 'attempted suicide' and 'deliberate self-harm'.”

Chapman & Dixon-Gordon (2007) define deliberate self-harm (DSH) as “the deliberate, direct destruction or alteration of body tissue without suicidal intent. In contrast with DHS, suicide attempts involve conscious intent to die and ambivalent suicide attempts involve ambivalence regarding the intent to die”.

Important points to consider:
• Is the behavior repetitive and/or habitual?
• What is the intended result of the behavior/action?
• Where is the client developmentally? What is his/her understanding of death?
• How can we improve our interventions and research around this topic?

Micro v. Macro

I've added via Blackboard most classes being offered this semester. Downloading readings for courses in which I'm not enrolled could certainly be construed as a bit of productive avoidance, but these readings and this research could be useful in the future, and I'm not always going to have university (read: easy and free) access to these journals and studies. I'm already finding the GLBT-related readings for the Spirituality and Clinical Practice course to most interesting and probably relevant to other papers I'll be writing for one of my own classes.

I'm also most pleased to find out that in addition to the research I'll be doing this semester, (policy and interventions for homeless children, developing an elective for the program centering around the micro, mezzo, macro skills needed to work effectively with an immigrant population) I'll also be teaching a handful of classes for a B.S.W. capstone course. Yeah; super excited doesn't cut it. I wasn't aware that this would even be an option and I'm really looking forward to the experience. 

Living the other side of the coin in the macro/micro battle, however arbitrary the conflict, feels good. To view work as either expressly micro or macro is an artificial division, in my opinion. And then to create a hierarchy is just plain infuriating. I realize that social work got bitched-slapped by the field's historical lack of the scientific method, but the pendulum swing (present in most fields I can think of) approach isn't the most appropriate. Clinical is better. Micro is worth more. These are the values put forth by the program, whether it admits to it or not. I was drawn to social work because of the flexibility and supposed interrelatedness of all levels of practice. Bottom line is that right now, I'm happier on the macro side of things. I'm surrounded by peers who read and ask questions and act. They put themselves out there and it's a welcome change. As time goes on, however, I'm realizing that I am no more macro than I am micro. If anything, I move toward whatever position is represented the least. I'd love to see a SW program that didn't rely on such imaginary divisions. I'm interested to know just how other schools structure their curricula.

Alphabet Soup

A list of acronyms for my Working with Adolescents: Practice, Systems and Advocacy course.
Many are specific to California.
Obviously, I'll be adding more as the semester continues.
Eventually I'll link to relevant websites and definitions.

AIM - Access for Infants and Mothers
CCS - California Children's Services
CHDPP - California Children's Health and Disability Prevention Program
EPSDT - Early Periodic Screening Diagnosis and Treatment (Federal Program)
FSP - Full Service Partnerships
ICAN - Inter-Agency Counsel on Abuse and Neglect
IHSS - In-Home Support Services
LSP hold- Lanterman-Petris-Short Act
LRE - Least Restrictive Environment
MHSA - Mental Health Services Act
PAI - Protection and Advocacy Inc
SPA - Service Planning Area
SELPA - Special Education Local Planning Area
SOS - Systems of Care
SSI - Supplemental Security Income
TAY - Transitional Age Youth
TBS - Therapeutic Behavioral Services

HEALTHmap

Because tracking infectious diseases, worldwide, at 2 o'clock in the morning is a fantastic idea. . .

HEALTHmap: http://www.healthmap.org

"HEALTHmap provides a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state o infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health by combing disparate data sources, of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization). Through an automated text processing system, the data is aggregated by disease and displayed by location for user-friendly access to the original alert. HEALTHmap provides a jumping-off point for real-time information on emerging infectious diseases and has particular interest for public health officials and international travelers."

PILOTS database-Military social work research

It would have been nice to have this a month ago. . .

PILOTS database-Military social work research (link goes to USC login. available via ProQuest)

About this database:

The PILOTS bibliographic database, covering the Published International Literature On Traumatic Stress, is produced at the headquarters of the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in White River Junction, Vermont. The PILOTS database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Its goal is to include citations to all literature on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health sequelae of traumatic events, without disciplinary, linguistic, or geographical limitations, and to offer both current and retrospective coverage.

Subject Coverage:

• post-traumatic stress disorder or acute stress disorder (with or without reference to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
• the assessment, description, prevention, or treatment of any psychiatric disorder, especially dissociative identity disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder), other dissociative disorders, or borderline personality disorder, associated etiologically or epidemiologically with exposure to a traumatic event, or to an event experienced as traumatic by the population under discussion
• the preparation or provision of mental health services to a traumatized population or a population at risk of experiencing traumatic events
• issues of professional ethics, scientific methodology, or public policy relating to traumatized populations.

Dates of Coverage: 1871-current

Update Frequency: monthly

Size: Over 33,554 records as of January 2008

Policy Links

Los Angeles City and County:

• City of Los Angeles: http://www.lacity.org
• LA County Board of Supervisors: http://bos.co.la.ca.us

California State Resources:

• State of California: http://www.ca.gov
  
• California State Legislature: http://www.legislature.ca.gov
  
• Finding your State Representatives: http://www.legislature.ca.gov/port-zipsearch.html
  
• California State Senate: http://www.senate.ca.gov
  
• California State Assembly: http://www.assembly.ca.gov
  
• California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General: http://caag.state.ca.us
  
• The California Voter Foundation: http://www.calvoter.org
  
• Stateline (California): http://www.stateline.org/stateline/?pa=state&sa=showStateInfo&id=CA
  
• California State Association of Counties (CSAC): http://www.csac.counties.org
  

Federal Resources:

• U.S. Government: http://www.firstgov.gov
  
• The White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov
  
• U.S. Senate: http://www.senate.gov
  
• U.S. House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov
  
• Finding your U.S. Representative: http://www.house.gov/zip/ZIP2Rep.html
  
• Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov
  
• GPO Access (Government Printing Office): http://www.gpoaccess.gov
  
• Thomas: http://thomas.loc.gov
  

Other:

• Project Vote Smart: http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm
  
• Influencing State Policy: http://www.statepolicy.org
  
• Google U.S. Government Search: http://www.google.com/ig/usgov
  
• Enter Your Zip Code to see Census Data: http://zipskinny.com
• Google Maps - Where a Bill Becomes a Law: http://whereabill.org