News Archive
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We Celebrate These 5 Female Trailblazers in Social Work
These five women have paved the way for the social workers of today.
We spend March celebrating the importance of social work and the amazing women who have pioneered (and continue to pioneer) major strides in the field.
Though a list of five is hardly comprehensive, the women below represent the constant striving and commitment to service we can all aspire to and celebrate year-round.
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Tammie Johnson sits a stone’s throw from Los Angeles International Airport, where thousands zip around the world every day. But swiveling on a chair next to her tent, she doesn’t feel like she’s going anywhere.
“I don’t know how long I can last out here,” she said.
Before Johnson, 54, was homeless, she said, she had a place in Hermosa Beach and a good job at Northrup Grumman. “I’ve had new cars — I’ve had it all,” she said. “But those things came to an end.”
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A plummeting birthrate and scarcity of resources have left Cuba facing a demographic dilemma.
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People often draw on their faith as a source of hope and strength in the face of life’s challenges. Yet providers are often wary of using spirituality in the treatment of serious mental health issues, fearing it violates the separation of church and state and will lead to proselytizing or alienate patients who are not religious. Others even regard spiritual beliefs as potential psychiatric symptoms.
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How can social workers, nurses and other clinicians ensure that the tools and techniques they use to treat clients are effective and not causing harm?
Leading scholars are tackling that issue in a series of conferences this year organized by the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work in collaboration with other partners. Topics include synthesizing findings from previous studies, adapting interventions for new contexts and developing rigorous, evidence-based practices in social work and nursing.
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Jessica Saba wakes up in the middle of the summer of 2011 and knows she is in harsh conditions.
There is trash all around, spilled water, overcrowded living spaces and barefoot children running between alleys. The unemployment rate is 43 percent. There are huge concrete walls about 26 feet tall with watchtowers on the tops. The only opening in the wall is for military vehicles and tanks to pass through.
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About 10 percent of the world’s population, or 767 million people, lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2013. A vast majority of the poor live in rural areas, are poorly educated, mostly employed in the agricultural sector, and more than half are under 18 years of age. And while incomes increased from 2014 to 2015, the 2015 poverty rate was 1.0 percentage point higher than in 2007, the year before the most recent recession.
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A group of volunteers, most wearing cardinal and gold, entered the orientation room at Newton Police Station in South Los Angeles to find yellow vests, maps, flashlights and clipboards waiting for them. These were the tools they would use as they fanned out in the surrounding neighborhood, combing the streets, alleys, parking lots and other areas where a person might find sleep for the night because they have no permanent home.
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President Trump promises to eliminate gun-free school zones. Many think he will likely sign an executive order soon.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) also recently introduced a bill, which would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act. Massie commented about the zones, “They do not and cannot prevent criminals or the mentally ill from committing acts of violence. But they often prevent victims of such violence from protecting themselves.”
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Alzheimer’s disease in African Americans is approaching a public health crisis. Evidence suggests African Americans are at greater risk for developing Alzheimer’s dementia than any other group in the United States. Research in this community lags, however, and recruiting African Americans for clinical trials remains a struggle. USC researchers hope a new texting campaign will change some minds.