Best in Mental Health: Agent of Change!

Mental Health Roundup 4/2/18 – 5/9/18

This roundup contains some of the latest news in social work, healthcare, private practice and more! It may assist you in understanding how best to help someone who is suicidal, how we may unintentionally disengage from our clients, be agents of change, practice greater self-care, improve our professional learning networks, build your private practice and more.

This wrap-up’s main themes are:

Therapy and Relationships
Healthcare
Advocacy
Self-Care/Inspiration
Social Work, Technology & Education
NonProfit Career & Private Practice

Therapy and Relationships

Avoiding Unrighteous Dominion – Mormon Marriages podcast w/Nate and Angilyn Bagley – “If you find that your spouse is consistently putting you down, disrespecting you, or leaving you out of major decisions, it’s time to talk about it…”
Biology and psychology – Helpful Social Work podcast – “exploration of what we can learn… from biology and psychology: how we can slow down; be reflexive; and understand why we and others are behaving as we are…”
Eric Schneiderman and ‘Coercive Control’ – Cari Romm – ” aim of emotional abuse is to hurt someone’s feelings so badly that they feel ashamed of themselves, and the aim of [physical] domestic violence is to hurt someone physically and make them afraid to resist in that situation, but the aim of coercive control goes beyond that…”
Exposure Strategies for PTSD Treatment – Aaron Brinen – “Without the phobic reaction to the memory, the individual can look at the cognitions associated with shame and guilt and correct them with the available evidence…”
A Few Pronoun Best [Preferred?] Practices – Sam Killermann – “Pronouns replace people’s names… it makes sense to give them the same respect we give people’s names…”
Growing After Trauma – Chris Dollard w/Dr. Julie Gottman – “An affair threatens the structure by which somebody has created their life… turns an individual’s life upside down… good definition of trauma…”
Helping the Suicidal Person – Social Work podcast w/Stacey Freedenthal – “five tips… Embrace a Narrative Approach: “Suicidal Storytelling”… Know When and Why to (and not to) Pursue Hospitalization… Incorporate a Hope Kit…”
How art therapy can help with children’s sleep patterns – Elitsa Velikova – “Imagine where a ‘safe place’ is and what it looks like for you… Who would you invite in your safe place?…”
A Parent’s Guide to Supporting Your LGBTQ Child – The Family Couch interview w/John Sovec – “students… feel connected and have their voices heard… Trevor Forum… vetted forum for LGBTQ… for parents and educators…PLFAG.com (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)…”
Rekindle that Friendship and be Friends with your Spouse Again – Sylvia Smith /SWH – “consider what actually makes a good friend… Create Common Interests… Date night can do wonders…”
“Shame Nation, The Global Epidemic of Online Hate” – Meredith Pangrace/Your Teen Magazine – guidelines on what to share and what to keep private… advice on dealing with trolls and how to recover from being cyber-shamed…”

Healthcare

Is Healthcare on the Brink of a Digital Revolution? – Joseph Babaian – “healthcare system has to be changed around costs… There’s a lot of care avoidance…”
Placebo power – All in the Mind podcast – “Placebos can turn on the body’s natural biological processes to relieve a range of conditions, and in the future deception may not even be necessary…”
Pressures to Breastfeed Can Harm Maternal Mental Health – Robert T. Muller – “For parents who can’t breastfeed for whatever reason, wonderful attachment bonds can still be made. Breast milk is not the only ingredient in a valuable, long-lasting relationship…”
Twitter-Based Medicine: How Social Media is Changing the Public’s View of Medicine – John Irvine – “I want to see heated debates contextualized, not sanitized, for the public…”

Advocacy

Autism and the Workplace – [part 2] – Stephen Borgman interview w/Thrivers Member Holly Anonymous – “stress of “fitting in” with facial expressions in the workplace… workplace accommodations suggested by autistics for autistics…”
Be an Agent of Change – Ray Schwartz/SDSU School of Social Work – “Go into the community, any community, and using your eyes, ears and nose, look around, notice. Then find out what is needed, and do it! Don’t ask permission.””
Don’t ignore class when addressing racial gaps in intergenerational mobility – William Julius Wilson –
“rates of intergenerational mobility hinge on where children grow up… On the one hand… race trumps class… But on the other hand, class trumps race…”
Ending Sexual Violence – Therapy Chat podcast – “In 93% of cases, the sexual abuser of a child is someone known to the child or the family… Most offenders are male, with about 33% being juveniles…”
If You’re Hungry, We Feed You – Food Gnomes TEDxBuffalo video w/Matthew L. Schwartz – “inspiring ten-minute… video… about the… [trauma informed] innovative project to feed people who are hungry…”
Incarceration, reentry, prevention, criminal justice reform – Doin’ The Work podcast w/Dante Barber – “prevention work of speaking to youth about… own experience in the criminal justice system, prisoner reentry…”
Lessons Learned from Lifelong Social Activists: Overcoming Barriers to Activism – inSocialWork interview w/Samantha Fletcher – “how… change agents navigated a lifetime of social activism, what sustained them, and how they responded to the inevitable setbacks and barriers…”
Liberation-Focused Healing – Practice of Being Seen w/Shawna Murray-Browne – “start by asking the question: What needs dismantling within my own life and what needs expansion?… we all have an opportunity to recognize the needs of brown and black persons…”
Life After ‘The Life’: Putting Families Back Together After Children are Trafficked – Chronicle Of Social Change/SJS – “Educating parents… paramount to successful reunification… Commercial sexual exploitation can change a young person’s worldview… hinder her ability to form trusting relationships…”
Sustainable Development, Climate Change & SW: 2018 Social Work Day at the United Nations – Megan Carroll/SocialWorkSynergy – “7 goals… members of the United Nations set as priorities… recording of the livestream…”
Time for Love – Relando Thompkins-Jones – “poem that explores homophobia in modern society… “love is no sin… I may sound angry but I’m scared… you’re always wearing worry lines and looking at the time…”
Workplace Bullying – Ermintrude – “It can happen to anyone. However confident, strong and competent you may feel you are, the sheer difference in the power dynamic and how it is used can shift all those areas quite quickly…”

Are You Verbally Abused at Work? – Emma-Marie Smith/HealthyPlace – “Verbal abuse in the workplace is more common than you might think… perpetrators reel their victims in with niceties, before turning on them and convincing them they’re crazy…”

Wounded Healers: A Multistate Study of Licensed Social Workers’ Behavioral Health Problems – NASW – “four out of 10 participants experienced mental health problems before becoming social workers, over half experienced these problems over the course of their social work careers, and over a quarter were currently experiencing such problems…”

Self-Care/Inspiration

Behind the Book: Counselor Self-Care – Bethany Bray/Counseling Today – “no perfect plan… The important thing is to have a plan and make self-care a career-long focus…”
Crises and Crossroads: Making Meaning in Your Life – Wendy Salazar/GoodTherapy – “Take time to meditate… Assess whether your work feels important… nurture yourself…”
Let’s Make Perfectly Imperfect Art – Amy Johnson Maricle – “free webinar about making art on the go… May 9… why it’s important to make art in those pesky little pockets of time that normally would get lost to scrolling, what the best supplies are to have on you…”
Self-Care A-Z: Helpers Being Human – Self-Care in Times of Stress and Crisis – Ashley Owen Santangelo/New Social Worker – “diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder… five minutes, most mornings, for brief guided meditations… focusing on gratitude… I asked for help whenever I needed it…“
Tips for Activating a Culture of Wellbeing in the Nonprofit Workplace – Beth Kanter – “Functioning Factor – Do people have what they need to do their job?… Feelings Factor – Do people feel appreciated and respected?…”
What is Radical Acceptance and How Can it Help Me? – Christine Reber – ” idea that, “pain + non-acceptance= suffering”… When we experience pain, if we allow ourselves to fully feel it and accept the reality of it, we can move on to embrace our new reality…”

Social Work, Technology & Education

Emoji as Threats in Student Messages and Social Media – Sameer Hinduja – “Many of us may share various emoji in humorous ways, but it’s important to remind students to exercise incredible wisdom when including them within posts that may possibly be viewed as threatening…”
The Future of Social Work Series: Part I –Reacting to change or innovating the change? – Ellen Belluomini – “emphasis in new social work will be on adaptation, cross discipline collaboration, and transformation. The challenge… will either support equitable solutions or increase the divide within and between systems…”
Community-Based Participatory Research in New MSW Course – BCSSW – “students design and implement a specific project…related to community development, community organizing, and academic research…”
Feedback Request for Resources on Implementing Evidence-Based Treatment Techniques – A group of representatives… have been working to create a method for easily sharing free, high-quality resources related to implementing evidence-based treatment techniques… brief survey…”
#MacroSW Chat 5/10/2018: Social Work is a Robot-Proof Career – Kristin Battista-Frazee/#MacroSW – “McKinsey study… careers which rely on empathy or creativity at work can expect to have job security… join… May 10 at 9 p.m. Eastern …“
The Most Dangerous Apps of 2018 – Marina Spears – “We need to be aware of the apps that are available, because most likely, our kids already are…”
Professional Learning Networks for Social Workers in the Digital Age – Laurel Hitchcock and Melaine Sage/Social Work Today – “Competent and ethical social work practice requires that practitioners, educators, and students stay up to date and share information about current news, practice knowledge, and the latest research findings…”
Raising A Digital Kid? Empower them to Mindfully Add Contacts – Devorah Heitner – “Elementary school – parents know all contacts/ friends/followers…”
Sharing Lived Experience in Mental Health Services – Jonny Lovell/Martin Webber – “mental health experience… most helpful type of information that practitioners might hypothetically share…training …to support staff… about how they might best share lived experience…”
Social Media, Ethics, Depression, and Teens (oh my) –Sean Erreger – “Young adults who use Instagram frequently compare their body image and this leads to increased anxiety… displaced high media literacy… have open conversation about risks and benefits…”
Using Twitter in Reclaiming Macro Practice, and Affirming Our Social Work Roots #MacroSW #swtech – Sunya Folayan, Laurel Hitchcock, and Karen Zgoda – “Macro social work has become a marginalized subfield within the profession, as clinical social work (a subset of micro socialwork) is promoted as both more relevant and more accessible…”
Visualizing Data: Infographic Assignments across the Social Work Curriculum – Laurel Hitchcock, Nathalie Jones and Melanie Sage – “students overwhelmingly love infographic assignments…”

NonProfit Career & Private Practice

Three Ways We Subtly Disengage From Our Patients – Jessica Dore/PsychCentral – “the temptation to analyze is sometimes a defense against feelings things we’d rather not feel…”
6 Blogging Tools that Make Blogging Faster and Easier – Sharon Martin – “A basic timer is one of the best blogging tools… Getting started is the hardest part… dictation function in Google Docs…”
7 Steps for Onboarding a Therapist into clinical supervision – Ili Walter – “Make sure you and your supervisee are a great fit!… Describe how you work… Assess supervisees’ desired outcomes…”
Better, Faster Treatment Plans – Maelisa Hall – “One easy way to make your treatment plans more meaningful to you and your clients is to write the treatment plan with the client…”
Lifetime Value of a Customer, Ideal Clients, and Getting more Clients – Practice of the Practice w/Sam Mallikarjunan – “Create content around what people would be searching for in Google when considering seeing a mental health professional…”
Nonprofits—America’s Third Largest Workforce – “diverse industry with a broad array of services. The health field—embracing hospitals, clinics, and home health services—accounts for 54% of all nonprofit employment…”
Starting Fresh and Growing Fast in Private Practice – Practice of Therapy w/Whitney Owens – “spending time out in the community going to doctors offices and even doing some presentations with them on mental health issues…”
Understanding Disability Insurance with Aaron Channing – Selling the Couch w/Aaron Channing – “it’s NOT really all about how much money we make as practitioners, but how we protect that income in the face of unforeseen circumstances…”