Health Sciences Association of BC, November 30, 2012.
The members of BC’s modern health care team who provide diagnostic,
clinical and rehabilitation services have announced they will begin
strike action next week. Tired and frustrated by months of inaction at
the bargaining table, health science professionals voted 90 per cent in
favour of a strike this month.
Wednesday, December 5, pharmacists
– who were threatened with a 15 per cent wage rollback earlier this
year – will reduce their work to essential services only.
On
Friday, December 7, medical imaging technologists – the people who
conduct x-rays, CT scans, MRIs, ultrasound, and other imaging procedures
– will reduce their work to essential services only. The only exception
to the reduction of service will be at Surrey Memorial Hospital, which
is just recovering from a catastrophic flood that affected services in
medical imaging, as well as closing the emergency department.
“Health
science professionals have been at the bargaining table for eight
months, and progress has been very limited. In fact, at the last
bargaining meeting, the employer was a no-show,” said HSA President Reid
Johnson.
“As the weeks pass and we see fair and reasonable
settlements reached with other public sector workers, our members want
to know when it is they can expect government to show up and bargain a
fair and reasonable contract.”
While other members of the
professional health care team keep getting wage increases handed to them
by government, health science professionals have been falling behind,
in some cases making several dollars an hour less than their
counterparts in other provinces. “Without them, the health care system
cannot function, and our members say it’s time their contribution to the
modern health care team is recognized,” Johnson said.
“We are
scheduled to return to bargaining next week, and hope this planned
strike action gets the attention of the government to come to the table
and negotiate a fair and reasonable agreement before we are forced to
take action that inconveniences the public,” he said.
HSA also launched a campaign website today, www.modernhealthcare.org,
and encourages members and all British Columbians to send a message to
government that fair and reasonable wage increases are needed to protect
our health care services.
-30-
For more information: Miriam Sobrino, Communications: 604.439.0994 or 604.328.2886 or msobrino@hsabc.org
Friday, November 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Inter-disciplinary MH Clinic @ UBC-O to focus on Individual & Family Mental Health & Wellbeing
Kelowna Capital News, November 27, 2012.
The Interprofessional Clinic is a collaborative venture between the schools of social work and nursing in the Faculty of Health and Social Development, and the psychology department in the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences.
The clinic will undertake an initial study into new treatments for nine-to 14-year-olds who are currently on a program of prescribed anti-psychotic drugs. The study is being funded by a $50,000 gift from the RBC Foundation through UBCO’s start an evolution campaign.
“Through the RBC Children’s Mental Health Project, we are committed to assisting organizations and programs that reduce stigma, provide early intervention and increase awareness about children’s mental health issues,” said Karen Borring-Olsen, regional vice- president, RBC Royal Bank, Okanagan.
“We are proud to support the Inter-professional Practice Clinic at UBC; we believe this project will make a meaningful difference for the families directly involved and future families through the generation of critical research.”
Edward Taylor, director of the School of Social Work and associate dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Development, says the study will have an initial enrollment of 15 to 20 youth patients and their families starting in late December or early January 2013.
“The research project will provide intervention for de-escalating aggressive behaviour and working with physicians and families to determine if antipsychotic medications can be safely decreased.”
The study will use a combination of strategies to provide individual case management, family support and family education as a service provided to the community.
Researchers will offer patients intense, individual treatments in an effort to reduce use of anti-psychotic medications.
The results are expected to help identify individuals who are candidates for this type of treatment and factors that contribute to successful outcomes.
“We will manage links to all of the components of community, school, physicians and family to help develop a coordinated effort that is not available through normal channels,” said Taylor.
The Interprofessional Clinic will also be used as a teaching centre.
Graduate students from the School of Social Work and Psychology Department preparing to become front-line mental health workers will provide clinical support.
Students from the School of Nursing will gain clinical knowledge, skills and expertise. The nursing focus will be on intervening with families experiencing difficulties managing chronic and life-limiting illnesses, says Carole Robinson, associate professor of nursing.
“An important aspect of the interprofessional approach is that students from different disciplines in nursing, psychology and social work will have the opportunity to learn with, about and from each other,” said Robinson.
“This addresses the current trend in health care of a team approach, which has been shown to more effectively address complex health and illness issues.”
“The Interprofessional Clinic provides a setting for innovative research, where students earning their PhDs in psychology will assess and provide continuing consultation to patients and their families,” said Jan Cioe, head of UBC’s psychology department.
The youth study is an opportunity for professionals to collaborate on common issues, says Cioe.
“Working with colleagues from other disciplines, we will use emerging best practices to treat these young patients with the goal of reducing their use of anti-psychotic drugs.”
The study will go beyond previous investigations that mainly focused on drug protocols and patient numbers, says Taylor.
“There has never been an intense study of how these children are doing in the community, how their education plays a role, how managing all aspects of their case impacts their wellbeing.
“Our interests are in the provision of service for the families and better outcomes for patients.”
Space for the Interprofessional Clinic has been provided in the Arts and Sciences Centre at UBC.
There are counselling rooms and group rooms are outfitted with IT and video capability for research and study. Decorations and furniture for the clinic have been provided through an anonymous donor.
For more information, community agencies and families can call Edward Taylor at 250-807-8740 or by email at edward.taylor@ubc.ca
Monday, November 26, 2012
From Advocacy BC
I also have a blog called, Advocacy BC where I post social welfare and justice, public policy, news & information on that one. On occasion I will cross post things.
Here are couple of recent blog posts:
Care, Justice & Good Economics: Investing in Services for Children, Youth & Families
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Invisible Disabilities
At Home/Chez Nous Provides Homes, Support & Hope
The At Home study had two groups: 300 people received housing and support
services while 200 people in the control group received no housing or support.
Melanie Connors was one of the lucky candidates who received an apartment after
years of dealing with mental illness and dual addictions. She has been in the
At Home study for three years with her 2 year-old son Elim who she claims,
"he's my whole world, he means everything to me."
'At Home' and thriving, for now, but support for homeless study ends soon (with video)
'At Home' and thriving, for now, but support for homeless study ends soon (with video)
Part 1 of a series:
Innovative research project that provides homes and support service to the
homeless is praised for saving lives and money, but participants may be left
scrambling when it ends
By Lori Culbert, Vancouver Sun November 24, 2012
Melanie Connors asks the toddler to identify a
train, a clown, an elephant on the pages of the classic children’s book about
overcoming adversity through optimism and hard work.
Elim, Connors says,
is her whole world. He is the only one of her five children who has not been
seized by child protection workers.
The odds were against
Connors keeping this baby, too. When she found out she was pregnant, she was a
homeless woman with bipolar disorder and an addiction to heroin and crack.
Today Connors, 36, is
taking medication for her mental illness, and is living drug-free in a
two-bedroom townhouse in Burnaby where, with support, she is raising her son.
The radical shift in
her life she attributes to one thing: being accepted as a participant into the
cutting-edge, $110-million At Home/Chez Soi study.
The project challenges traditional views that a
person should be sober and mentally stable before moving into an independent
home. The At Home researchers are examining whether chronically homeless people
with serious mental illnesses will stabilize if they are given a house first,
and then support services such as drug counselling, health care and access to
psychiatrists.
“When I got that apartment it changed everything. I
got out of the (Downtown Eastside), so I was in a nice area. I had furniture. I
had a home for the first time in, well, years,” Connors said during an
emotional interview.
“Because of that I managed to stay clean my whole
pregnancy and I got to keep my child. And I really don’t think that would have
ever happened, you know? I wouldn’t have him now if it wasn’t for the At Home
project.”
Early results
promising
Between October 2009 and the spring of 2011, the
$30-million Vancouver arm of the national At Home study scooped up 300 people
from the streets and gave them a home with support from outreach workers.
The first round of
academic data indicates the majority of participants committed fewer crimes,
visited St. Paul’s emergency room less often, became stable neighbours, and
reported an improved quality of life.
Early results from the national study argue this
housing-first solution for complex, hard-to-house, mentally ill people can even
save taxpayers money in the long run.
But at the moment this
research project is only that: a research project. And while most of the
participants have shown signs of significant improvement, they remain guinea
pigs because the federal money for their rent and support services ends in
March 2013.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Social Work Testimony at Phoenix Sinclair Inquiry (Winnipeg)
By
James Turner
,Winnipeg Sun, November 22, 2012.
There's a few things about Phoenix Sinclair that stuck out to Kim Hansen as she and her Child and Family Services colleagues seized the three-year-old from her father's home out of fear it was unsafe for her.
But the most telling was how the well-behaved little girl kept calling every woman she saw "mom" despite being total strangers.
"She was calling me 'mom' the entire time," Hansen on Thursday told an ongoing inquiry into Phoenix's death. "When they took her to (an emergency hotel-room placement) she was calling the caregivers there mom," said Hansen.
"To me that just shows that there's no consistent care provider — it's a lack of attachment," she told inquiry Commissioner Ted Hughes. Her mother, Samantha Kematch, in concert with boyfriend Karl McKay, would end up brutally abusing and murdering Phoenix in 2005.
CFS's June 23, 2003 apprehension of Phoenix marked the second time in her brief life she was placed in care. A few days later, social worker Laura Forrest would sit down with all available information about her case and deem it to be "high-risk." It was a finding contrary to what some of her social-work colleagues had believed in the past.
The crisis worker, Roberta Dick, admitted it wasn't unheard of in 2003 for some initial safety assessments to be downgraded in order to give overburdened social workers more time to deal with heavy workloads.
The assessments set out how quickly a CFS case worker was to tackle a case and ranged from within 24 hours (the highest priority) to five days (the lowest).
Dick she admitted Thursday she did consider elevating the required response time to 48 hours, but said it was common practice to try and give social workers some breathing room because they were so busy.
“We would often know when there were a lot of files open, and based on that we would try and balance the workload,” Dick said.
Dick testified she would never have “mischaracterized” a safety assessment where it was clear it needed an rapid response.
*************************************
By Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press, Nov. 22, 2012.
WINNIPEG -- A
Manitoba social worker says she "probably could" have done more to
check on a girl whose death is now the subject of a public inquiry, but she
feared that being too aggressive would backfire.
Laura Forrest took on Phoenix Sinclair's case in
February 2003, when the toddler was brought to hospital with an infection from
an object that had been lodged in her nose for three months. The hospital
reported the matter as a probable case of neglect.
Forrest told the
inquiry on Thursday that she went to the girl's home and was met by her father,
Steve Sinclair, who said Phoenix was being cared for by a family friend.
Forrest said she went back to the home a few times over the next four months,
always during the daytime, but there was no answer at the door.
Under
cross-examination, Forrest said she could have taken other steps such as
phoning other relatives, but didn't.
"I probably
could have done a few other things. I didn't at that time," Forrest said.
"I also don't know what else was going on for
me with other families."
"Did you ever
think of going there in the evening?" asked Jeff Gindin, the lawyer for
Steve Sinclair. "I did not, no," Forrest replied.
Forrest never saw
Phoenix, who was apprehended four months later when child-welfare workers
received an anonymous call that suggested the girl was at risk because Sinclair
was having drinking parties at his home.
Social workers went to the residence and found
Sinclair drunk, along with two friends who had passed out on the floor. More
social workers visited over the next 24 hours, by which time Sinclair had
started smoking marijuana, the inquiry was told.
"You've got a
little child of three with gangs, there's violence and drugs and weapons, and
no one seems to be taking care of (Phoenix)," said Kim Hansen, an
after-hours social worker who called police to help her take the girl into
care.
Phoenix was brought to a hotel to spend the night
with other social workers. Hansen was taken aback by the way the little girl
called every female she saw 'mom.'
"She was calling
me mom the entire time. I remember that. When I took her to the (hotel), she
was calling the caregivers there mom. To me that just shows that there's no
consistent care provider. It's a lack of attachment to a mother figure."
The removal from
Sinclair's home was just one of many wrenching events in Phoenix's short life.
She was seized by child-welfare workers several times and returned to her
mother, Samantha Kematch, a final time in 2004 -- the year before she was
beaten to death by Kematch and her boyfriend.
The inquiry has already heard evidence that social workers
failed to monitor Phoenix for months at a time. The hearings are to determine
how the little girl fell through the cracks of Manitoba child welfare and why
her death went undetected for nine months.
"Maybe in hindsight it would have been a better idea that I picked the moderate medical treatment (category), but I was also considering giving the assigned worker the ability to choose how soon they could go out and investigate based on their caseload demands," Roberta Dick, the social worker who received the hospital report, testified Thursday.
"Maybe in hindsight it would have been a better idea that I picked the moderate medical treatment (category), but I was also considering giving the assigned worker the ability to choose how soon they could go out and investigate based on their caseload demands," Roberta Dick, the social worker who received the hospital report, testified Thursday.
Phoenix would spend the
rest of her life in and out of foster care. In 2004 she was handed back to
Kematch, who by then was in a new relationship with Karl McKay. In 2005,
Phoenix was killed in the basement of the family home.
Kematch and McKay were
convicted of first-degree murder. Evidence at their trial showed they had
abused and neglected the girl, sometimes forcing her to eat her own vomit and
shooting her with a BB gun.
The inquiry is still
in its early stages. It has yet to delve into why child-welfare workers removed
Phoenix from a foster home and gave her back to Kematch in 2004 and what, if
any, monitoring followed. Kematch and McKay's murder trial heard that a social
worker went to visit the family in 2005, was told Phoenix was sleeping and left
without seeing her.
A day in the life of ... an adoption social worker (UK)
Jessica Sale is an adoption social worker for a local authority. She places children with families and then offers support
Guardian Social Care Network, Guardian Professional,
My first appointment might be visiting a family where a child
has recently moved in – most of my visits involve just a short drive
When a child is first placed with an adoptive family, the support they
receive is fairly intense, but as the family gel together we gradually
reduce our involvement if things are going well.
In more complex cases we continue to provide support to adoptive families for many years. This could be anything from home visits, referrals to specialist services or financial support to therapeutic interventions or meetings with schools. In a few cases, the experiences of the children before coming into care leave them with such complex needs that help outside the family will be needed at some point.
Sometimes difficulties emerge years after the adoption order is made, but local authorities have a duty towards adoptive families until the child reaches the age of 18, and all our adopters are invited to our support group, even if the placement is going well. Adoptive parents can meet and share experiences.
Alternatively, I might prepare for a child moving to an adoptive placement and meet prospective adopters and the child and adolescent mental health service practitioner who has been working with a child, so the family can hear their perspective on the child's needs. Everything we know about a child gets passed on to the prospective adopters.
At lunch, I usually get to grab a quick sandwich in the office, in the car on the way to my next visit or occasionally in a local cafe with a colleague.
Back at my desk, my first task is checking emails and messages. I always hope there have been enquiries about my children – we are not able to place all of our children with adopters we have assessed within the council so we publicise them around adoption agencies all over England and Wales.
I might then have a meeting with a child's social worker, to plan family finding and keep up to date with the child's situation. Days can be quite long. Potential adopters might work in the day so need to be visited in the evenings, or there may be evening events to try to interest people in becoming adopters.
We always have many more children needing adoptive families than we have families waiting to adopt, so recruiting potential families is a constant challenge for us. There are a lot of myths about who can adopt so at recruitment events we try to get all the facts across.
If I don't have evening visits, I might go for a run, to mull over the day and think about my list of things to do – I don't know of any social worker who feels they have enough time to do the job justice and, with the current squeeze on resources, our caseloads are bigger than ever.
Getting out for a run inevitably leaves me feeling better, mentally and physically. I recently ran the Oxford half marathon and raised money for the Oxford Cancer Centre.
Weekdays are pretty full on so I try to make sure the weekends are my own, but every year we have an adoption party for all our families and I never begrudge giving up a Saturday for this as it is a chance to celebrate adoption with our children and families as they grow up together.
Why not join our community? Becoming a member of the Guardian social care network means you get sent weekly email updates on policy and best practice in the sector, as well as exclusive offers. You can sign up – for free – online here.
In more complex cases we continue to provide support to adoptive families for many years. This could be anything from home visits, referrals to specialist services or financial support to therapeutic interventions or meetings with schools. In a few cases, the experiences of the children before coming into care leave them with such complex needs that help outside the family will be needed at some point.
Sometimes difficulties emerge years after the adoption order is made, but local authorities have a duty towards adoptive families until the child reaches the age of 18, and all our adopters are invited to our support group, even if the placement is going well. Adoptive parents can meet and share experiences.
Alternatively, I might prepare for a child moving to an adoptive placement and meet prospective adopters and the child and adolescent mental health service practitioner who has been working with a child, so the family can hear their perspective on the child's needs. Everything we know about a child gets passed on to the prospective adopters.
At lunch, I usually get to grab a quick sandwich in the office, in the car on the way to my next visit or occasionally in a local cafe with a colleague.
Back at my desk, my first task is checking emails and messages. I always hope there have been enquiries about my children – we are not able to place all of our children with adopters we have assessed within the council so we publicise them around adoption agencies all over England and Wales.
I might then have a meeting with a child's social worker, to plan family finding and keep up to date with the child's situation. Days can be quite long. Potential adopters might work in the day so need to be visited in the evenings, or there may be evening events to try to interest people in becoming adopters.
We always have many more children needing adoptive families than we have families waiting to adopt, so recruiting potential families is a constant challenge for us. There are a lot of myths about who can adopt so at recruitment events we try to get all the facts across.
If I don't have evening visits, I might go for a run, to mull over the day and think about my list of things to do – I don't know of any social worker who feels they have enough time to do the job justice and, with the current squeeze on resources, our caseloads are bigger than ever.
Getting out for a run inevitably leaves me feeling better, mentally and physically. I recently ran the Oxford half marathon and raised money for the Oxford Cancer Centre.
Weekdays are pretty full on so I try to make sure the weekends are my own, but every year we have an adoption party for all our families and I never begrudge giving up a Saturday for this as it is a chance to celebrate adoption with our children and families as they grow up together.
Why not join our community? Becoming a member of the Guardian social care network means you get sent weekly email updates on policy and best practice in the sector, as well as exclusive offers. You can sign up – for free – online here.
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