August 2013 - Vol 3, Issue 40 

CBT is based on the idea that problems aren't caused by situations themselves, but by how we interpret them in our thoughts. These can then affect our feelings and actions. For example, if someone you know walks by without saying hello, what's your reaction? 

 

You might think that they ignored you because they don't like you, which might make you feel rejected. So you might be tempted to avoid them the next time you meet. This could breed more bad feeling between you both and more "rejections", until eventually you believe that you must be unlikable. If this happened with enough people, you could start to withdraw socially.

But how well did you interpret the situation in the first place?  CBT aims to break negative vicious cycles by identifying unhelpful ways of reacting that creep into our thinking.

"Emotional reasoning is a very common error in people's thinking," explains Dr Jennifer Wild, Consultant Clinical Psychologist from Kings College London. "That's when you think something must be true because of how you feel."  Continue.

  

Addressing the Mental Health Problems of Border and Immigrant Youth      

  

Borderlanders are often ridiculed by mainlanders on both sides of the border. U.S. mainlanders frequently characterize the border region as an area plagued by poverty, banditry, racial strife, illegal immigration, drug smuggling, official corruption, violence, and security breaches (Martinez, 2006). Conversely, Latinos in Mexico's heartland frequently view the border as a region excessively reliant on the U.S. economy and American goods and as a source of moral permissiveness stemming from indulgence of American tourists' desires. They may disparage Mexican and Mexican American borderlanders as agringados, who have succumbed to Americanization and forsaken their Latino culture.

Acculturation pressures on Latino families are many. While the majority status of bilingual Mexican Americans in border communities allows some respite from the pressures to acculturate, border residents also recognize that not adapting to the host culture may result in significant problems as they interact daily with people, systems, and institutions in the United States. Additionally, those borderlanders who do adopt mainstream U.S. values may feel guilty or ashamed of losing their cultural identity and face disapproval from their significant others and families as being "too American." Sometimes the differences in acculturation levels within families can lead to conflicts.  Full report from National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

  

Degrees of Giving: Leading with Generosity    

 

When we think of generosity, our thoughts automatically drift to gifts of money or charity. In the context of leadership, there are other gifts that don't have a monetary value, but whose value is beyond price. These include giving someone a chance; giving someone the benefit of the doubt; and giving others a reason to want to work for you. It entails giving others latitude, permission to make mistakes, and all the information that they need to do the job. It's giving them the authority that goes with responsibility - it's giving them due credit for their ideas. In a nutshell, all of this translates to generosity of spirit, a quality we admire in leaders.  Continue.  

 

Social Work, Leadership, and Community   

 

. . . there is a link with social work and other helping professions. We are not an island to ourselves. The end goal is to help others, but also to integrate individuals into society at large. We are not just individuals, but individuals that are part of a larger community.

In an interview on the NPR show "Tell Me More," host Michel Martin spoke with Jerri Katzerman of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which recently filed a civil rights complaint against the Florida Department of Education over its race-based goals for increasing student achievement. These goals set higher proficiency levels for Asian-American and white students than for black and Hispanic students. For instance, in reading, it calls for 90 percent of Asian-American students to be at grade level by 2018, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanic students, and 74 percent of black students. Supporters say it sets realistic targets for student performance, based on where students are starting. Katzerman explains that the SPLC is suing because Florida has drawn lines simply based on race, rather than including resources or strategies that would help children actually meet any goal -- the state is moving the goal post for its own benefit. These race-based goals differ from affirmative action, Katzerman said, because affirmative action promotes diversity and offers opportunities to kids of different backgrounds, acknowledging that differences in experience add to a university or college setting. Florida has created "wildly divergent expectations without any real pedagogical reasons," other than acknowledging that the baseline for some subgroups is low.  More.

The Other Casualties of Head Start Cuts       

The budget deal that President Obama cut with Congressional Republicans has forced children out of existing Head Start programs, which in turn has cost low-income parents jobs when they're left with no childcare, reports William Selway for Bloomberg.com. Sequestration excised $400 million from Head Start this year, the deepest cut since the program's 1965 creation. As a result, 60,000 slots are projected to disappear by September 30, the end of the federal fiscal year. Chicago and Baltimore will use their own resources to offset the budget gap, but rural municipalities lack that ability. And in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Phoenix, more than 1,700 slots have been eliminated. In 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services spent $8 billion on Head Start; in April, the department announced spending would be $7.6 billion. Single mother Kelly Burford of Taneytown, Maryland had to quit her $7.25-an-hour job as a department-store clerk when her son Bradyn's slot was eliminated from a program run by Catholic Charities. "The teachers were really good -- he was learning a lot," she said. "Now, he's fallen back." Burford is relying on help from her parents to pay $200 a week -- about what she was making at her minimum-wage job -- to place Bradyn in a nursery school while she looks for new work.  Full article.     

Competency-Based Education Moving Forward    

Because competency-based systems haven't been implemented or studied on a large scale, only time will tell how well students taught that way fare in college or careers compared with their peers. But more states are moving to adopt the approach, including [New Hampshire,] Oregon, Maine, Kentucky, Arizona, and Iowa.  Moreover, when individual school districts competed for a recent round of Race to the Top grants from the federal government, 75 percent of the winners included competency-based elements in their plans, according to Knowledge Works, an education nonprofit group that supports competency-based reforms.  Learn more.    

Target Field Trip Grants   

 

Do Something Seed Grants      

ACSSW's present activities include:

• hosting a multi-professional Mental Health In Schools Institute in Milwaukee on September 30th that invites school and community mental health providers to participate; 
• drafting a national school social work role framework paper;
• establishing a National Center for School Social Work Practice, Leadership and Research, a long-term goal,
• developing another professional learning opportunity in exciting New Orleans, February 10-11, 2014.  Watch for details to come. 
• staying on top of national educational reforms and trends.

If you have interest in participating in any of these activities, contact Judie Shine.  ACSSW strives to be inclusive and transparent in all of its activities and welcomes, whether lengthy or short, the participation of its members.