Category: Uncategorized
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Washington’s Wildfires Show Why Disaster Social Work Cannot Begin After Evacuation
Wildfires near Spokane County prompted a federal public health emergency in August and new Medicare and Medicaid flexibilities for Washington. Federal guidance addressed continuity of care, dialysis, replacement medical equipment, prescription access, privacy, language assistance, and support for state health programs. Each provision responds to a real need. Together, they show why disaster social work…
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When the Problem Is Systemic: Race, Indigenous Traditions, and the Limits of Individual Therapy
When a person experiences discrimination, displacement, or insecurity, an intervention can help them cope while leaving the source of harm untouched. Social work must be willing to ask whether its response changes the conditions of suffering or merely asks the person suffering to accommodate them. This second article in The Social Work Reformer’s series examines…
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How Psychotherapy Became a Center of Social Work, and What That Shift Can Leave Behind
Social work should be able to relieve emotional suffering and help change the conditions producing it. The danger arises when the profession’s educational priorities, career incentives, and available jobs make treatment of individuals more attainable than sustained work on housing, income, services, and community power. This first article in The Social Work Reformer’s three part…
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Gary Needed Refrigeration, Water, and Cooling. Where Were the Schools of Social Work?
When power fails for days, a family’s needs become immediate and concrete. Food must be kept safe. People need drinking water, a tolerable indoor temperature, transportation, and a way to communicate. Distress is part of that experience, but so are the material conditions producing it. Gary’s prolonged August power outage raises a question for social…
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South Dakota’s Falling Crime Rate Does Not Mean Every Community Is Safer
South Dakota’s statewide crime totals fell in 2025. That is welcome news, but newly released mortality data show why social workers and policymakers must resist declaring victory from a single aggregate measure. American Indian residents continue to experience homicide and suicide at profoundly disproportionate rates. A serious public-safety strategy must hold both facts at once.…
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35 States Have Joined the Social Work Compact. Workers Still Cannot Use It.
The Social Work Licensure Compact has achieved an impressive legislative count. By July 2026, 35 states had enacted compact legislation. Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Alaska were among the latest additions, and bills remained pending elsewhere. For advocates who spent years persuading legislatures that social workers should not have to repeat the same licensing process every…
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An Encampment Is Not Someone Else’s Caseload: Social Work Must Reclaim Street-Level Housing Practice
The South Seattle encampment now spreading across several acres is a picture of institutional surrender. It is also a warning to social work. Neighbors report trash, needles, tree clearing, violence, and an informal market. People living at the site describe a need for housing, recovery support, and protection from winter weather. The city says it…
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Social Work Does Not Have to Own Every Form of Helping
Social workers are often described as the people who do everything nobody else will do. They counsel families, respond to crises, navigate benefits, advocate in schools, support patients, organize communities, investigate abuse, help people find housing, supervise programs, interpret policy, and repair failures created elsewhere in government. The description is intended as praise. It is…
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LITE Shows Social Work Education How Tutoring Can Become Community Safety Work
Social work education often speaks about prevention, community engagement, and interdisciplinary practice. Lehman College’s LITE program offers a concrete example of what those ideas can look like when a public college works with a justice agency to support young people before their challenges become crises. Lehman identifies LITE as Lehman’s Initiative for Tutoring and Empowerment.…
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North Carolina Declared Child Welfare Workforce Development Month. Now Fund the Workforce.
North Carolina has paired a September workforce proclamation with a revived social work student stipend program. That is meaningful progress, but a pipeline cannot compensate for weak retention, unmanageable caseloads, or inadequate supervision. North Carolina opened September by declaring Child Welfare Workforce Development Month. Proclamations are easy to dismiss as ceremonial, especially in a field…