February 18, 1934: Birthday of Audre Lorde
Download PDF copy of Audre Lorde’s classics Zami, Sister Outsider and Undersong, complete in one volume.
Here, you should all have this.
Audre Lorde is forever my #1 guiding light/inspiration.
(via themodernistwitch)
The National Mall got a new memorial yesterday, if only briefly. As part of One Billion Rising, Baltimore-based feminist group FORCE installed a temporary memorial recognizing survivors of sexual assault. The group greated giant letters out of a statement from a rape survivor and floated the eight-foot-tall words onto the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
(via scumblebee)
Researching MSW-MPH programs that I could potentially get into. So many questions..
1. Why is graduate school so expensive?
2. Why is graduate school so expensive?
3. I go for free? No? Okay.
My list includes:
1. UMich (longshot, program is so competitive PLUS I want to attend school out of state)
2. FSU
3. UGA
4. anywhere warm and affordable
I really wanted to move to Savannah, GA but they don’t offer a dual master’s program for Social Work. I feel almost as if I’m obligated to complete 2 masters degrees to find meaningful employment in the field of Social Work. Gaah. Any of you tumblr kids in a dual master’s program? How is it working out for you?
I didn’t do a dual MSW/MPH, mostly because my school doesn’t offer the program, but I’ve taken electives in the school of public health and am strongly considering a doctorate in public health when I’m ready to go back to school. I think you can structure an MSW program, especially in your second year, to be about public health without necessarily getting an MPH if it’s not an option for you.
(Source: khasalghul)
Remember that you can submit written testimony in support of or opposition to any of these measures easily online by clicking the link for the bill that interests you. Let your policymakers know what you think!
What is Compassionate Care? It’s a bill in Hawaii’s legislature to ensure that all survivors of sexual assault receive information about and access to emergency contraception when they visit an emergency room. Right now, there is no clear and consistent policy across hospitals in Hawaii to ensure that women receive this care—leaving many women every year vulnerable to unintended pregnancy as a result of a sexual assault.
Last year, our supporters took over 1,500 actions on Compassionate Care, including petition signatures, legislative testimony, and emails to key members of the legislature, and they helped push our efforts further than ever before. We got very close to passing the bill last year, but ultimately did not succeed.
This year, it’s more important than ever that we increase our efforts, and a great way to do that is by showing up. We want to show Hawaii’s legislators that our community cares about sexual assault survivors, and that we believe that all children in public schools deserve access to comprehensive, fact-based, medically accurate sexuality education.
So, for the first time in our history, we’re holding a lobby day, co-sponsored by the Hawaii Women’s Coalition, on Tuesday, January 22, 2013—the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. We’ll be participating in a press conference, legislative visits, eating lunch, and then sign-waving to commemorate Roe.
Follow this link to register & reserve your free t-shirt no later than January 3: http://is.gd/lobbyday. Invite your friends, family, and colleagues to attend—the more, the merrier.
If you live on a neighbor island & can’t make it to Oahu, but would like to participate, we’ll be collecting photographs of supporters to share with neighbor island legislators to show your support. Please send us an email at contact@pphi.org for more information about our virtual lobby day for our friends on the neighbor islands.
Happy holidays, and mahalo for your support.
Here’s a sample of my work on 2013 Hawaii legislative advocacy. Sign up if you’re interested!
Hawaii’s public school teachers, represented by theHawaii State Teachers Association, are on strike. They are striking in a unique way: they are working to the rules, so only working during the hours of their contract - 8 AM - 3 PM, to show how much work they do for free after the state has forced an unfair contract on them. Students are rallying beside their teachers.
The strike was called by HSTA because: in July 2011, HSTA filed a lawsuit to protect collective bargaining rights. The governor then imposed an unfair contract that they did not agree to. Then, in January, teachers voted no on the contract because it increased the share teachers paid of health premium costs while keeping salaries at 2006-2007 levels (in a state with one of the highest costs of living in the country and, adjusted for COL, some of the lowest teacher salaries). In February, the governor lobbied the legislature for a bill linking pay to teacher evaluations (and failed). Our appointed (not elected) Board of Education ignored the HSTA and passed policies linking teacher pay to evaluation standards. HSTA again rejected a contract based on those standards in March. In May, HSTA approved a contract but the state rejected the offer. In October, HSTA and the state attempted non-binding federal mediation, but the governor violated the rules of mediation and HSTA left the bargaining table. source
The “offer” to teachers that is still on the table links teacher pay to a new evaluation program that measures student growth; drug and alcohol testing for teachers; and no increase in pay and a higher price in health premiums for teachers to bear (that has been talked about in media). Hawaii’s public school teachers teach in some of the most under-resourced and impoverished communities in the country; support services are lacking at best and nonexistent at worst. Make no mistake that all of this is linked to neoliberal ideals of “education reform” that are behind attempts at restricting the right to collective bargaining in places like Chicago, Ohio and Wisconsin.
State education officials are now saying that teachers are contractually obligated to work hours beyond 3 PM and are threatening employees for participating in these protests; HSTA says that teachers have the right to engage in these protests.
It would be great if y’all could reblog and signal boost this—I would love to see as much support as I did for the CTU during their strike. If I see ways for folks on the continent to contribute financially or otherwise, I will post again. I’ve already emailed the HSTA to ask how I can help. But I want you all to know that this is part of a larger plan by people controlling the education and labor agendas in this country right now - a plan to restrict our rights to collectively bargain for our rights as workers, and a plan we must resist.
ORGANIZE. SUPPORT LABOR. SUPPORT TEACHERS.
More information:
All photos taken from the Hawaii Teachers Work to the Rules Facebook page.
The Txt4Mood adjunct is aimed at addressing problems with ‘‘homework’’ adherence during treatment by providing a convenient medium to track patient mood, cognitions, and behaviors. It is designed to work alongside the HMOR treatment in both Spanish and English. The automated system sends daily text messages to patients inquiring about mood ratings and additional daily messages that correspond to treatment themes. These messages include thought-tracking (both positive and negative), tracking of pleasant activities, tracking of positive and negative contacts, and tracking of physical well-being and illness. These messages are meant to reinforce skills, provide feedback to patients on progress, and help assess the effectiveness of the treatment. Additionally, patients receive reminders of weekly group meetings and patients on medication can also opt to receive reminders on their regimen. Another component of the system allows patients to reach out during difficult times by texting a keyword (e.g., STRESS) to receive a randomly generated message suggesting cognitive and behavioral tips to counteract stressors and/or sad mood. They can also text the word HELP and receive the number for a suicide hotline or be prompted to contact 911 for an emergency.
…Reports indicate particularly high use of mobile phones and text messaging among Latinos with 85% owning a phone and 75% of those already using text messaging (FCC, 2010). Given the accessibility of mobile phones and their relatively low costs, more people can benefit from health treatments. Although our focus is depression, these tools can inform the development of other health interventions. We see these low-cost tools as providing higher quality care and, thus, helping to reduce health disparities among low-income and ethnic minority populations. These initiatives are part of our mission to employ evidence-based, technology-aided, culture-sensitive treatments to reduce health disparities worldwide, that is, to ‘‘think globally, act locally, and share globally’’ (Muñoz, in press).
Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Depression in Spanish: Culture-Sensitive Manualized Treatment in Practice, by Adrian Aguilera, Monica J. Garza, and Ricardo F. Muñoz, at the University of California, San Francisco
As a social worker, my agenda is shaped by the needs of others, not by my needs for support or recognition. The test of my work is then consistent with the test for any social worker. Have I contributed a critical social work that centralises the desires, needs and rights of the people we know as clients? And I have set my sociologically imaginative sights on the empowerment of my constituency by wrestling with the multiple steps and processes, spaces and relationships, interactions and expectations that must be faced as we work from private pain into social change? This…is social work’s task and promise.
