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THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER® Social Work E-News
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Issue #60, November 15, 2005


EDITOR'S EYE

Dear Social Work Colleagues,

Welcome to Issue #60 of the Social Work E-News. This e-mail newsletter is brought to you by the publisher of THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER magazine, SocialWorker.com, SocialWorkJobBank.com, and other social work publications.

I just returned last week from Austin, TX, where I attended the national conference of the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors (BPD), a great group of people who direct and teach in undergraduate social work (BSW) programs. I found the conference refreshing, as usual, and a wonderful opportunity to meet old and new friends and colleagues. Social workers are a creative bunch! As always, I enjoyed listening to the Shameless Blues Band, a group of social work professors (including THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER technology columnist Marshall Smith) who like to play some good music and have fun. I also picked up my own copy of a new social work calendar just published by the School of Social Work at the College of St. Catherine and the University of St. Thomas. Called the "Men at Work" calendar, this calendar features male social workers in humorous poses, with the goal of debunking the myths of social work as a female profession and encouraging "the nation's best men…to join the ranks of those who commit their lives to making this a better society." Kudos to Barbara Shank, dean of the school of social work, for this innovative idea.

There were many BSW students at the conference, as well as educators. I heard one recent BSW graduate's presentation on his experiences interviewing people for a racism oral history project. At the same time, while the conference was going on, we saw that racism is still alive and well in our society, when the Ku Klux Klan rallied at the Texas state capitol. A group of conference participants joined in a counter-rally.

The recent death of Rosa Parks has made us all stop to think how far our country has come since the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, but how far we still have to go. One of the core ethical principles in the NASW Code of Ethics is that "social workers respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person." Section 6.04 (d) of the Code states, "Social workers should act to prevent and eliminate domination of, exploitation of, and discrimination against any person, group, or class on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, political belief, religion, or mental or physical disability." Shouldn't that be a core ethical principle of all human beings, social workers or not?

Social worker Diane Pagen recently traveled to Ireland to make a presentation on the issue of unpaid work by caregivers. Read her report in this issue of the E-News.

Last month's Social Work E-News featured information on domestic violence. We hear a lot about male violence against females, but not as much about domestic violence that occurs in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender relationships. In this E-News, I have listed some resources on this important topic.

November is National Hospice/Palliative Care Month. A good resource is the Social Work Hospice/Palliative Care Network site at http://www.swlda.org/network/ -- "A place for social workers and colleagues to learn more about what is happening in the emerging field of social work in end-of-life and hospice/palliative care."

If you are looking for a social work job, check out the listings on our Web site at http://www.socialworkjobbank.com & and be sure to let the employers know that you saw their listings there! If you are hiring social workers in your agency, please let our readership know about your job openings through a listing on SocialWorkJobBank, in the Social Work E-News, or in THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER.

If you like the Social Work E-News, you will want to check out THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER (the quarterly magazine)! See our Web site at http://www.socialworker.com for information and articles from the most recent issue. And if you haven't seen the new digital edition of THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER magazine yet, now is the time to do so! See a preview of a recent issue in your browser at http://www.zinio.com/express?issue=105154918 or subscribe at http://www.zinio.com/offer?issn=1073-7871&of=PH1&bd=1&rf=swen and get two FREE issues.


Until next time,
Linda Grobman, ACSW, LSW
Publisher/Editor
THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER®
http://www.socialworker.com
linda.grobman@paonline.com


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IN THIS ISSUE
Word From Our Sponsor
Features
Job Corner/Current Job Openings
News
On Our Web Site
In Print
Newsletter Necessities


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WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR


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HTTP://SOCIALWORKEXAM.COM
Social Work Exam Prep Review. Prepare right on the Internet!! Multiple choice exam banks, Timed Questions, Secrets to Passing, DSM-IV Terms, Notables, all Online and Interactive. Reveal strengths and weaknesses so you can map your study strategy. Check out our FREE QUESTION SAMPLER!!
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FEATURES


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GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

In October, we observed Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Much media attention is given to male battering of female partners, and many people do not realize that domestic violence occurs within same-sex relationships with the same statistical frequency as in heterosexual relationships. (See http://www.abanet.org/domviol/stats.html for statistics on domestic violence.)

This issue is addressed in my book MORE DAYS IN THE LIVES OF SOCIAL WORKERS (see http://www.socialworker.com/home/Publications/Social_Work_Books/More_Days_in_the_Lives_of_Social_Workers/), in the chapter entitled, "Hospital-Based Domestic Violence Advocacy." In it, Jill Rodriguez, BSW, writes, "Although most clients we serve are women, we do see approximately 15 men a year, most of whom are in same-sex relationships and are being abused by their partners." She tells the story of a male patient who was not screened for domestic violence on admission to the hospital, but who saw a brochure for the hospital's domestic violence program and called her (one of the program's social workers). She adds, "It was very difficult for him to disclose the abuse, but he had an even harder time telling me he was gay." This comment sums up two of the most common reasons that this type of violence often is not reported.

The following are some Internet sources on domestic violence in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender relationships.

Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project: http://www.gmdvp.org/

GLBT Domestic Violence: http://www.rainbowdomesticviolence.itgo.com/

Article on GLBT Domestic Violence: http://www4.gayhealth.com/templates/1131557405347034479025/news/?record=271&trycookie=1

National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs: http://www.ncavp.org/

Article: Domestic Violence in Gay Couples: http://www.psychpage.com/gay/library/gay_lesbian_violence/index.html

Domestic Violence in LGBT Communities Fact Sheet: http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/violence/domesticviolence_lgbt.html

Article: The Second Closet: Domestic Violence in Lesbian and Gay Relationships: A Western Australian Perspective
http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v3n4/vickers.html

Article: Few Laws Help Gays in Cases of Domestic Violence
http://www.sodomylaws.org/usa/usnews107.htm

The following are some books on the subject:

Same Sex Domestic Violence: Strategies for Change
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0761903232/newsocialwork-20

Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0918393973/newsocialwork-20

No More Secrets: Violence in Lesbian Relationships
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415929466/newsocialwork-20


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Policy Report from Ireland, October 2005
by Diane Pagen, MSW

Article 41.2 of the Irish Constitution recognizes women's unpaid work. In practice, however, Ireland is making it more difficult for mothers and other caregivers to choose to do unpaid work without suffering severe financial hardship.

On October 1, women (and a few men) in Ireland held a conference on unpaid work. Their Dublin-based organization Curam: Irish Parents and Carers, seeks recognition and access to income and pensions for Irish mothers and other caregivers who choose to work in the home caring for their own children or aging family members, rather than enter the paid job market. The U.S.-based organization Social Agenda, Inc. was invited to speak about its campaign to convert the federal Child Tax Credit to a Caregiver Tax Credit.

Ireland's economic policy changes in recent years have favored the labor market participation of both parents in a family. These policy changes punish families who want to care for children at home instead of putting them into institutional day care or other alternatives to hands-on parenting. For example, a policy called "tax individualization" enacted in 1996 has led to the following discriminatory situation: consider a two-parent family with a combined income of 52,000 euros annually and in which both hold paid jobs. This family will pay approximately 7,000 euros less tax than a two-parent family in which the father holds a paid job with a salary of 52,000 euros, but the mother stays in the home caring for their children.

Curam says that a mother is an "active carer," and is entitled to receive economic support. European Union statistics also discriminate against a stay-at-home parent by classifying anyone caring in the home as "inactive," highlighting the faulty notion that the only active citizens are those who are working for wages. Curam is at this moment engaged in outreach to Irish Parliament ministers and the European Union, as well as the media, to demand the state and the European Union recognize the value of unpaid work, and stop penalizing the families who choose to do it with discriminatory tax schemes.

There are 544,600 people working full time in the home in Ireland, the great majority of them women. The value of their work per homemaker has been very conservatively valued at 23,540 euros per year. If they are forced by escalating taxes and the lack of an economic safety net to leave their children for a paying job, they will have to be replaced by paid caregivers, which forces the government to raise taxes again to raise money to pay for new child care slots. And, for the most part, the mothers are not likely to earn anywhere near their true value at home. They and the women (primarily) who replace them will vie for artificially suppressed wages. Curam argues that parents who want to care for their own children should get the same protections, such as tax breaks, pensions, and respect for "working," as dual market earning parents. Likewise for single parents.

This issue is a pressing one in the U.S., as well, where it has become clear that the government cannot create as many day care slots as will be needed if every parent is put into the paid labor market. In January 2005, Jim McDermott of the Committee on Ways and Means suggested that the federal government had underfunded the creation of child care slots by $10 billion this budget. The point is not that we should find that $10 billion to create all that day care. The point is we must also support parents who choose to work in the home caring for their own children with benefits equal to those who choose the marketplace. One way to begin down the road to creating this access is through a refundable caregiver credit that covers not care of children but care of adults, irrespective of the parents' relationship to paid jobs.

The issue of unpaid caregiving labor is at the core of the causes of poverty (women are poor because the bulk of their work is counted as valueless). How we value unpaid work will determine how we approach a host of human issues such as the care of children, early childhood development, family leave policy, and the care of our growing aging population.

In reconsidering the value of unpaid work, we have an opportunity to begin to shift perceptions and right policy wrongs, thereby moving future social welfare policy into a sensible conversation about compensation and respect rather than the current talk of handouts and stigma.
For more information, contact Social Agenda, Inc. at http://www.caregivercredit.org.

Diane Pagen is project director for the Caregiver Credit Campaign, which seeks to convert the U.S. Child Tax Credit to a refundable Caregiver Tax Credit and increase the dollar value of the credit. She was previously a social worker in the Bronx, New York, and is a graduate of Fordham University.


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JOB CORNER

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VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIV. Department of Psychiatry is recruiting a VA licensed social worker for faculty position to serve as clinician/therapist/researcher at Virginia Treatment Center for Children. Responsibilities include providing individual/group/family therapies, supervising interns, inpatient case management, and conducting research. Experience with children/adolescents/families and cognitive-behavioral therapy, ability to work on interdisciplinary team required. Research experience preferred. Send CV to Search Committee, c/o Brian Meyer, VCU, Box 980489, Richmond VA 23298. VCU is EEO/AA employer. Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply.


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EVALUATE TRAINING MATERIALS online.

We are looking for people who work in social services to evaluate a training video on the topic of working with people who have cognitive limitations, and to complete two short online questionnaires. We are award winning producers of training materials for educators, health care professionals, and the developmental disability community.

Participants in the project will learn new ways to recognize and support parents with cognitive limitations. They will also be paid $100 for their participation. The feedback they provide after watching the videos can have a positive effect on the development of social worker training materials.

If interested, or to find out more, log on to: http://www.irisresearch.net/social.html
or contact Lisa Cassidy at IRIS Media, Inc., 258 E 10th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401, 877-343-4747, ext. 204. Learn more about IRIS Media at: http://www.lookiris.com

Deadline for enrolling is 12/15/05.


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Find more jobs for new grads and experienced social work practitioners at http://www.socialworkjobbank.com, THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER's online job board and career center. We are proud of the fact that this site was chosen as one of 350 (out of 40,000+ employment sites) to be included in Weddle's Recruiter's and Job Seeker's Guide to Employment Web Sites 2004 and 2005.

If you or your agency are hiring social workers, don't forget to post your jobs on SocialWorkJobBank.com. Please check the SocialWorkJobBank "products/pricing" page for job posting options and SPECIAL offers.

All job seeker services are FREE-including searching current job openings, posting your confidential resume/profile, and receiving e-mail job alerts. Please let employers know that you saw their listings in the SOCIAL WORK E-NEWS and at SocialWorkJobBank.com.


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NEWS

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More than One Million Patients Served by Nation's Hospices Last Year:
President Bush Signs National Hospice Month Proclamation

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) reports that 1,060,000 patients sought hospice care services in 2004, an increase of more than 100,000 from the previous year. This is a record number of Americans coping with life-limiting illness that were served by our nation's 3,600 hospice providers.

A proclamation recognizing November as National Hospice Month was signed by President Bush on November 2, 2005. The proclamation states, "The compassion reflected in hospice care is one of the reasons America has the best health care system in the world. Our whole nation is grateful for the good work of our dedicated medical professionals and hospice caregivers. By taking the time to care for others, they are making America a better place."

The proclamation is available on the White House Web site at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051102-7.html.

"An important part of the work being done by hospice and palliative care professionals across the country involves helping people and other healthcare professionals understand the value of hospice care services to patients and families," commented J. Donald Schumacher, president and CEO of NHPCO. "We are seeing more and more Americans looking for information about care at the end-of-life and advance care planning, well before they are faced with a health crisis."

Community hospices are important resources for people learning about care options and ways to make sure their wishes are met should they face a serious or life-limiting illness. Hospice professionals also work to educate the community and other healthcare professionals about the hospice model of care.

Hospice uses an interdisciplinary team of health care professionals and trained volunteers to provide pain-management, symptom control, psychosocial support, and spiritual care to patients, and their families. While a patient must have an expected prognosis of six months or less, hospice care can be provided for six months or longer, depending on the course of the illness. Many Americans do not understand this and wait unnecessarily before seeking care.

Hospice is a covered benefit under Medicare, Medicaid in most states, and most private insurance plans and HMOs.

Caring Connections, NHPCO's consumer engagement initiative, has had more than one million visitors to its Web site since its launch in March 2005. Caring Connections offers information on hospice and palliative care, state-specific directives, and other materials free-of-charge. Visit the site at http://www.caringinfo.org or call the HelpLine at 800-658-8898.


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BOOKS ON HOSPICE, DEATH, & DYING

Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553378767/newsocialwork-20

The Hospice Choice: In Pursuit of a Peaceful Death
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684822695/newsocialwork-20

On Death and Dying
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684839385/newsocialwork-20

Dying Well
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573226572/newsocialwork-20


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THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER'S DIGITAL EDITION


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Have you seen THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER's new digital edition? Easy storage, immediate access, flipping pages, searching, zooming, linking, note taking, and other interactive features will add a whole new dimension to your reading experience! The digital edition is an exact electronic replica of the print magazine.

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THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER's Web site at http://www.socialworker.com includes the full text of many articles from past issues of the magazine. On our site, click on "About the Magazine" to find Tables of Contents of the current and back issues, and click on "Feature Articles" to find full-text articles.

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JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK VALUES AND ETHICS-FALL ISSUE AVAILABLE NOW

The Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics is a free, online, peer-reviewed journal published by the publisher of THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER. It is published twice a year, in full text, online at http://www.socialworker.com/jswve

The Fall 2005 edition is available now!

Go to the journal Web site at http://www.socialworker.com/jswve to read this issue. You can also sign up for a free subscription, and you will be notified by e-mail when each issue is available online.


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IN PRINT

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FALL ISSUE OF THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER AVAILABLE NOW

The Fall issue of THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER magazine is now available in print and in digital format. Highlights include:

• ISM and IST: Effective Tools for Cultural Awareness
• Learning to Dance
• Surviving College and Moving Toward a Balanced Life: Strategies for Social Work Students
• International Social Work I: Poverty is a Grind (First of a 3-part series)-Now available online at http://www.socialworker.com/home/Feature_Articles/General/International_Social_Work_I%3A_Poverty_Is_a_Grind/
• My Professional Life as an EAP Social Worker
• Career Talk: Transferable Skill Extraordinaire: Suicide Intervention
• Electronic Connection: The Digital and Ethical Mindset of Social Work Students-Now available online at http://www.socialworker.com/home/Feature_Articles/Technology/The_Digital_and_Ethical_Mindset_of_Social_Work_Students/
…and more!

See our Web site at http://www.socialworker.com for more details about this issue.

This issue is available NOW in our new digital format. Order a subscription at http://www.zinio.com/offer?issn=1073-7871&of=PH1&bd=1&rf=swen and download the Fall issue TODAY.


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ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER

THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER® SOCIAL WORK E-NEWS is published by:
White Hat Communications (publisher of THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER® magazine and THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER® ONLINE)
P.O. Box 5390
Harrisburg, PA 17110-0390
Linda Grobman, Editor
linda.grobman@paonline.com
http://www.socialworker.com


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