Abstract:  Conflicts between personal and professional values are common in social work practice.  This article highlights a personal narrative of a social worker's journey to resolve one such ethical dilemma.  The author describes the process of personal reflection and confrontation of long-standing beliefs and the implications for social work practice.  Full article.

Myths and Facts about Empirically Supported Mental Health Treatments (ESTs)   

Empirically supported treatments (ESTs) are interventions that have been found to be efficacious for one or more psychological conditions, like major depression, panic disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, within a given population. Prior to the 1990s, there were no specific guidelines for either practitioners or mental health consumers regarding which treatments to select for which conditions among children, adolescents, and adults. As a consequence, the psychotherapy field was plagued by serious problems with quality control.  This state of affairs changed in 1993. . .  Full article here. 

From the Center at UCLA     

Enhancing School Involvement to Address Barriers to Learning:  A Collaborative Process  

Schools tap Medicaid for more than $1.6 billion each year to pay for services for some students with disabilities. Physical, occupational, and speech therapy, mental health services, transportation, and counseling could be covered if a student's education plan says they need these things.

But, said John Hill of the National Alliance on Medicaid in Education, schools could be missing out on possibly billions more, money that instead comes out of school district budgets and federal special education money, because of paperwork required to claim the Medicaid funds.

The federal Education Department's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has proposed changing the paperwork rules to make things easier on schools. The proposal entails letting schools ask parents far less frequently for permission to tap Medicaid for services their child's education plan says they need.  Read full Ed Week article.  

Childhood Disorder Prompts Study of Infection Link to Mental Illness   

... So began a horrific battle with a sudden-onset mental illness that was diagnosed as pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcus, or PANDAS. The puzzling name describes children who have obsessive-compulsive disorder that occurs suddenly - and often dramatically - within days or weeks of a simple infection, such as strep throat. "He washed his hands over and over and was using hand-sanitizer nonstop," said Tracy Kennedy, who has home-schooled her 11-year-old son since early November. "He had never been like this before. Ever. He just woke up with it." 

The bizarre illness, first recognized in the mid-1990s, has been cloaked in controversy. Now, however, studies are reinforcing the belief that some psychiatric illnesses can be triggered by ordinary infections and the body's immune response. While the theory remains unproved, the research raises the possibility that some cases of mental illness might be cured by treating the immune system dysfunction... PANDAS is thought to be caused by antibodies generated as a result of an infection, usually strep. Normally, an infection causes the body to generate antibodies that fight the infection and promote healing. But in PANDAS, the antibody response is thought to go awry, attacking brain cells and resulting in OCD symptoms. A greater understanding of the link between strep and OCD has opened the door to the study of other psychiatric or neurological illnesses that may be linked to improper immune response, including cases of autism, schizophrenia and anorexia.  Read full story.

Another College-Readiness Angle:  Helping Teens Manage Sleep    

A study from the University of Rhode Island revealed that students lose more than 45 minutes of sleep each week due to their cell phone disrupting their sleep. The students who used technology at the highest rates also had higher levels of anxiety and depression compared with the rest of the students in the study.  Read more.

Bipolar Kids May Focus on Different Facial Features    

Children with bipolar disorder and a similar condition called severe mood dysregulation spend less time looking at the eyes when trying to identify facial features, compared to children without the psychiatric disorders, researchers say.This new study finding may help explain why children with bipolar disorder and severe mood dysregulation have difficulty determining other people's emotional expressions, said the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health investigators.  More.  

The fellowships are intended to support doctoral students for work done after the successful defense of their dissertations. Although applicants must be candidates for a doctoral degree at a graduate school in the United States, they need not be U.S. citizens. Applications are encouraged from a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to education, sociology, economics, psychology, statistics, and psychometrics.

The fellowship is a one-time award of up to $25,000, which may be used for a period of not less than nine months and up to eighteen months. Four fellowships will be awarded.  Complete program information and the application form are available at the Cooke Foundation Web site.  Deadline:  February 3, 2012.  Link to complete RFP. 

Libri Foundation: Books for Children 

TheLibri Foundation Books for Children Grants donate new, quality, hardcover children's books for small, rural, public libraries across the country. Maximum award: varies. Eligibility: Libraries should be in a rural area, have a limited operating budget, and an active children's department. The average total operating budget of a Books for Children grant recipient must be less than $40,000. Deadline: January 23, 2012.  Application Guidelines.