From June 2001 NASW NEWS
Copyright ©2001, National Association of Social Workers, Inc.

Social Work in the Public Eye

Frederic Reamer

NASW Rhode Island member Frederic Reamer was featured in a May installment of the cable television Arts and Entertainment channel's Investigative Reports series entitled "Parole Board — Rhode Island." Reamer, recently reappointed by the governor of Rhode Island to serve his fourth three-year term on the state's parole board, said he offers a critical counseling perspective in the parole hearings and often recommends treatment options for inmates such as residential living, employment training, mental health services and gambling or addiction counseling.

"Social work has so much to offer the parole process," Reamer said. "There are complex social issues at work beyond law enforcement. My role on the Rhode Island Parole Board is to assess what the inmate needs after release to succeed on the outside."

A May HBO cable television documentary on the psychiatric unit of New York City's Bellevue Hospital cited NASW's online Register of Clinical Social Workers as a mental health resource.

The documentary directed viewers to HBO's World Wide Web site for mental health information, resources and services. The site's entry for the NASW online link read, "The NASW Register of Clinical Social Workers provides a listing of clinical social workers that meet verified uniform national professional criteria — www.socialworkers.org/clinreg/clinreg.htm

The documentary, "Bellevue: Inside Out," included footage of Bellevue's psychiatric emergency room and testimonials from patients.

New Jersey social worker Meyer Schreiber wrote an op-ed page article for the Asbury Park Press advocating a "total overhaul of the child welfare system in New Jersey."

The state Division of Youth and Family Services has not stemmed fatalities, abuse and neglect for children in its care, Schreiber wrote. "DYFS must be abolished and replaced by an administration on children and families that the governor and legislature, in bipartisan fashion, get involved with," he urged.

Harvard University's Honoring Nations, which cites American Indian tribal government programs that are especially effective in addressing key needs, selected the Navajo Child Special Advocacy Project as one of 16 finalists and awarded it "high honors."

The project provides Western and traditional Navajo diagnosis, forensic interviews and treatment to sexually assaulted children.

Participating in the awards ceremony for the project were four members of the NASW Arizona Chapter's Navajo Hopi Nations Unit: Mary Huyser, Miranda Blatchford, Marlene Van Winkle and Iris Yazzie.

Benette DeCoux

Former NASW Ohio Chapter Interim Executive Director Benette DeCoux was quoted in an article on challenges to child protective services workers in the Akron Beacon Journal. DeCoux commented on the reams of paperwork and high caseloads for social workers. The article was generated by an incident in which a child died of injuries that severed part of her intestine just three days after Wayne County Children Services filed a complaint of neglect and dependency with juvenile court and requested a protective order.

The article highlighted some factors that impede child protective services social workers from performing their jobs flawlessly: the stress of seeing children living in terrible conditions and the ever-present fear of making mistakes that could cost children their lives; ambiguous cases; and heavy caseloads and blizzards of paperwork.

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