Erin Merryn, center, flanked by Senators David J. Valesky, left, and Jeffrey D. Klein, at the New York state senate discussing Erin’s Law in October 2011.
New York State Senate
Erin’s Law requires the teaching of child sexual abuse and exploitation prevention classes from kindergarten through eighth grade. How it got adopted by 34 states is the story of one woman’s crusade.
It takes a family to raise a child. Vulnerable children should not be treated in isolation. Family-centred interventions usually meet the complex needs of children.
A new program at the Hamilton Public Library is making on-site social workers available to the public.
(Hamilton Public Library)
Tight funding and COVID-related limits on face-to-face contact have forced academics to find other ways to expose students to the real-life work they are preparing them for.
Employee satisfaction rises when it’s OK to be your true self at work.
Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com
In the US, black children wait longer to be adopted and cost less to adopt than white children.
Medical social workers perform many tasks for patients, but the work is taking a high toll on them, leading to burnout and attrition.
YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV/Shutterstock
Medical social workers coordinate care, an especially important job in complicated cases. Just as nurses and doctors are feeling burned out, these unsung heroes are feeling the burn, too. Here’s why that’s dangerous.
Research shows that the rate of death by suicide is more than four times higher for mothers whose children were placed in care.
(Shuttersock)
99% of people who disappear come home again. A third of them don’t stay.
A child from a special care centre in Cape Town celebrating international kite day. In South Africa mental health services are not a priority.
Epa/Nic Bothma
While the global health community has made mental healthcare a priority, South Africa is not following suite. The impact is felt most acutely by poor people suffering from mental health disorders.
Non-stop demands.
Joe Giddens/PA Archive/PA Images
After a long period of expansion in the number of children living in out-of-home care, most modern child protection systems around the world have been labouring to prevent such placements. Instead, they’re…
Rotherham’s reputation will now precede it.
Lynne Cameron/PA
Rotherham Metropolitan Council has released its independent report on the handling of child sexual exploitation cases in the borough between 1997 and 2013. The author of the report, Professor Alexis Jay…
Working out what’s going on isn’t as easy as it looks.
Social worker by Shutterstock
Social workers deal with messy, complex and ambiguous situations where off-the-peg solutions are often irrelevant. Take a mother who wants to feed a hungry baby, but her fridge is empty because she can’t…