Best in Mental Health (6/20/16 – 7/10/16)

Mental Health Roundup

This contains some of the latest news in social work, healthcare, private practice and more!

This week’s wrap-up has 6 main themes:

• Healthcare
• Advocacy/Cultural Sensitivity
• Self-Care
• Therapy Tools
• Tech/Social Media
• Non-Profit Career/Private Practice

Healthcare

• Congress Passes Mental Health Legislation – Zawn Villines -“Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act… modified bill now covers residential mental health care for no more than 15 days… authorizes more suicide prevention and child mental health provisions…”
• Exploring Shared Value in Global Health and Safety – “workshop convened by the National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to discuss how shared value, the concept of embedding social impact strategies… can be applied to improve health and safety… summary…”
• How to Evaluate Online Health Information – David Susman – “the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)… list of 12 questions you can use to evaluate health-related websites…”
• Population Health or Good Old Fashioned Social Work? – Sean Erreger – “Population Health shifts the focus from looking at individuals but to groups… core social work values… fit well with population health…”
• #PreventableHarm debate 20/7/16 – “Can risk assessment in mental health be evidence-based?… free open ‘question time’ style debate… in London but also on Twitter… live streamed on YouTube” < sounds like a great match for #SPSM in U.S.!
• Risk, relationships and moral work – Diana Rose – “analysis of transcripts of interviews with service users, family members and practitioners around the question of how far service users and their families are involved in risk assessments… care planning… [not]… recovery-focused…”
• We live in a culture of mental health haves and have nots – KevinMD – “Mental health problems are the leading cause of disability… About half of us will experience mental illness during our lifetime… structural barriers… “

Advocacy/Cultural Sensitivity

• The Indigenous memory code – All in the Mind podcast interview – “Traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines are key to a powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world…”
• “Just Because We’re Magic Doesn’t Mean We’re Not Real” – Vilissa Thompson – “Jesse Williams… show “Grey’s Anatomy,” … activist about the Black experience, inequality, and injustice… speech touched on whiteness, police brutality, appropriating Black culture…”
• Living with Bipolar – Robert T. Muller – “Laura Bain lives with bipolar disorder and describes her condition in this thought-provoking TEDx Talk.”
• Keys To “Success” Should Not Be Rooted In Anti-Blackness – Relando Thompkins-Jones – “Daily, in ways subtle and explicit, Black kids are told they are unacceptable because of who they are, including because of how their hair grows from their heads…”
• #MacroSW Media Night 6/30/16 – Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA – Laurel Iverson Hitchcock and #MacroSW hosted a twitter chat… a link the movie… archive of chat to be added”
• Managing the undefineable – the human judgments of child protection – Peter Choate – “Inherent… is a belief… society should intrude into the family only as much as needed to protect the child… Safety is an incredibly complex concept in which many factors interact…”
• #PulseOrlandoSyllabus, #PulseOrlando & #MacroSW – Karen Zgoda, Patricia Shelly, Sheri LaBree –  “#PulseOrlandoSyllabus is an extensive resource list… we should remember the people who were murdered as whole people…”
• Questions So Simple We Never Ask Them: Helping Families Meet Basic Needs – SJS/Chronicle Of Social Change – “we assume our clients will tell us what they need… they… have resources… Find out how the want of some small thing – a backpack, shampoo, an alarm clock – is causing big problems…”
• Report: Black And White Americans Are ‘Worlds Apart’ On Views Of Race – NPR – “just 8% of black Americans say the changes needed to achieve racial equality for blacks in the U.S. have already been made, while nearly 40% of white Americans say the same thing…”
• Resource: The Peace Corps’ Culture Matters Workbook – Jodi Nelan – “workbook breaks down culturally driven values and behaviors in American and other cultures… self-assessment quizzes and the lists of behaviors that reveal a culturally-determined value…”
• #WeStandUp –  podcast interview with Annie and Torielli on the role of social workers in helping their clients overcome sexual violence and trauma… “reclamation is a necessary step for victims of sexual violence to absolve themselves of the guilt that too often plagues them…”
• Who is this mysterious tribe named “the elderly”? – Shirley Ayres – “in poll: 71 – 80 on twitter; over 50/55 at places of work!; age is a statistical category not an identity… people aged sixty plus are not one homogeneous group… our different life experiences inform our perspectives as consumers…”

Self-Care

• Three Ways to Be Happy With What You Have –  Arley Hoskin – “channel the feelings of happiness during the moments when you don’t feel happy. Think back to a time or place that makes you feel happy and at peace…”
• Art Journaling for Healing: Doodle and De-Stress – Amy Johnson Maricle – “Because we are all creative, when we feel out of balance, creative acts can help us balance… give yourself the gift of time and permission to create…”
• Guided Instructions to Breath-Centered Meditation – Sharon Salzberg

Therapy Tools

• Gang Membership Prevention: It Takes a Village! [own] – “interview with Dr. Shadeiyah Edwards… gang involvement can begin as young as 11 years old… The more risk factors that youth experience, the more likely they are to join a gang…”
• Human Trafficking and Slavery– Joe Sanok podcast with E. Benjamin Skinner – “There are more slaves in the world today than at any time in history…”
• How to Help Your Anxious Daughter – Julie Hanks – “stressed out kids and teens… sleep deprivation… family problems, perfectionism, overuse of social media… the troubled world we live in… close your mouth, open your ears, and be a better listener…”
• The Imposter Syndrome and the Social Worker – Danna Bodenheimer- “the mismatch between what is expected of us and what we are actually doing leaves us feeling as if we are faking it… many of us are doing even more than our best…”
• Introvert Power: Susan Cain Wants to Correct a Cultural Bias – Ryan Howes – “it’s time the world came to appreciate the strengths and contributions of the 50 percent of Americans who are introverts… Introversion is much more about a simple preference for a quieter, stimulating environment. Shyness is more about the fear of social judgment and being prone to feeling social embarrassment…”
• The Middle Passage – Therapy Chat podcast interview with Lourdes Viado – “her work with clients… who are feeling out of alignment with themselves… strategies… including poetry, metaphor and dreamwork… help her clients… navigating… transition…”
• Online Sexual Health Outreach for Gay and Bisexual Men: Providers’ Perspectives – inSocialWork podcast interview with Episode Dr. David Brennan about his work in the development and evaluation of online outreach and CRUISElab, a research lab focused on gay and bisexual men’s health.
• Peggy Orenstein Talks Girls & Sex – Meredith Pangrace – “girls are more likely than boys to use their partner’s pleasure as the measure of their satisfaction… hookup culture is about feeling-less sex… Not caring is the ultimate goal… we can educate our kids to have experiences that are safe, responsible, ethical, reciprocal, and enjoyable…”
• Recognizing and managing deception in the therapeutic relationship – Gregory K. Moffatt – “Nearly all of our clients will lie to us at some point… Several client populations are at particularly high risk for lying, including incarcerated individuals… ask… if the client has a motive to lie…”
• Self-Esteem versus Self-Compassion Handout – Jenna LeJeune – “Global, overarching beliefs about ourselves can be hard to change… handout that we give to clients comparing and contrasting self-esteem with self-compassion… watch video by Kristen Neff…”
• Stand up for me and be brave: what young people want from social workers – Rod Kippen – “Having friends is vital to me; don’t forget this when making plans… Put your notepad down… Hide your work ID card when you go out with me…”
• Triggers [and How to make story stones… used in the post] – Kristina Marcelli-  “to help children recognize triggers… use story stones… pictures such as houses, animals, people… encourage him or her to place the stones on the feeling that is associated for them…”

Tech/Social Media

• Facebook Live and Periscope: Live Streaming for Social Workers – Mercedes Samudio – “You can do live broadcasts that provide psychoeducation to your community… begin and/or end each broadcast with a disclaimer that it is not therapy…”
• How to Be a Wizard at Tech Training Design and Delivery – Beth Kanter – “We used a Harry Potter theme to give the session a fun feel… Adults tend to interpret information received in a training based on existing knowledge in their brains and then integrate it with previous experiences…”
• The Power of Social Media – Rachel L. West – “On the morning of June 22nd House Democrats stood up for gun violence prevention by sitting down… sit in made national headlines… watershed moment for how social media can be used as public policy advocacy tool…”
• Sextortion – Sameer Hinduja – “sextortion involves threats to expose a sexual image in order to make a person do something or for other reasons, such as revenge or humiliation… most sextortion is motivated by pure malice and the desire to humiliate the target…”
• Social Media How-To Guide for Social Work Educators – Drs. Becky Anthony and Jennifer Jewell – “Think about and reflect on your own usage of social media… Identify specific goals… Increase… knowledge and skills…”
• Technology Standards in Social Work Practice: Give NASW feedback – Laurel Hitchcock and #MacroSW team are hosting a twitter chat on 7/14 to discuss; “standards cover… Provision of Information to the Public… Designing and Delivering Services… Gathering, Managing, and Storing Information… Communication with and about Clients… Social Work Education (especially distance education)…”
• Tired of Googling “Food Pantry”? – Sarah Clore – “Healthify, a web-based social services resource search platform… allows you to quickly and easily search for food, shelter, mental health care, and many more program categories, by zip code…”

Non-Profit Career/Private Practice

• 3 cool truths about effective therapists – Lisa Mitchell- “Therapists are insatiable learners… strive to continually add to our tool box of skills in order to be effective with our clients… clients are our best teachers…”
• 10 Tips for Documenting in Crisis – Melissa Hall – “Make sure you check in with whomever is in charge to see what is expected of you… Make suggestions… Document anyway…”
• Do a Time Audit – Casey Truffo – “many therapists feel pressured for time… for five typical days… chart how you’re using your time, on an hourly basis… The key is to first observe, without trying to change anything…”
• Experiences in Private Practice – Selling the Couch Podcast interview with Vanessa Scaringi – “Connect and surround yourself with those you can teach you… Value yourself, know your worth, and don’t be reactive with money…”
• Getting Started in Telemental Health: 7 Legal & Ethical Tips – TeleMental Health Institute free webinar July 20 – “Demand for behavioral services is increasing dramatically with both parity and health care reform… Half of U.S. residents have no access to behavioral services…”
• How to Innovate to Solve Social Problems – Elizabeth Chung – “some of the most effective ideas come from adopting the strategies or technologies that have created breakthroughs in other sectors… Invest in At-Risk or Overlooked Populations… Collaborate Across Sectors..”
• International Online Therapy: What to Know Before You Go (and Start Doing It) – Roy Huggins – “all your licenses and certifications can apply whenever you do work that is covered by them, no matter where you or your client are located…”