Indian Robin Hood says politicians are thieves too

Somewhat charmingly, an Indian jewel thief has claimed a political Robin Hood motive for his actions - here's the report from the Hyderabad Times:

"I am fed up with the way the system is functioning these days. Politicians are thieves who loot us for five years and I became a thief just for a night to show the world the growing inequality in the country"...If given a chance, I can serve the society better than any politician," said Kumar, who has four brothers and a widowed mother at home to feed from the paltry money he earns as a mason...

Kumar, the prime accused, walked into a local television channel's office late on Sunday and told the receptionist that he was the one who had carried out the heist. "My cousin Anand needs money to undergo a surgery. We tried to get help, but no one cared," he told the police later.

 

Modern Social Work Theory, new edition published

I suppose this is international social work news: the new edition of my book, Modern Social Work Theory (it's the fourth) has just come out, bigger, better, easier to read, and heavily updated.

Link to the British publisher: Palgrave Macmillan.

Link to the American publisher: Lyceum.

the book is widely used internationally, and I hope that, as with previous editions, there will be translations of the latest version.

Working with addicted women and children in Afghanisatn

An interesting article interviewing Shabnam S, a young woman working with female addicts and addicted children in Afghanistan:

When I graduated from university, I worked in ministry of women affairs for six months and I was working on criminal cases. One day when I was crossing the Puli Sokhta bridge, I saw addicted people under the bridge. They were laying there, and their situation was unbearable. When I saw this, I thought: the women who are suffering from a problem, at least they know that they are human beings.

 ...

Our outreach team is based in Shah Shahid, and they find addicted people who live on the dusty streets. Our team goes to public places like schools and mosques, and tells people to come to our hospital for treatment.We make their minds ready, and show them how to leave the drug, how to be confident not to use drugs again, or how to be away from the things to make them use the drugs. We try to make them understand that they are also normal members of society.

Link to article

Social work strike in LA leads to promises of extra recruitment

For many social workers around the world, striking is unimaginable, partly because of the concern for professional responsibilities, but also partly because you can't imagine many governments being all that concerned if they couldn't offer their social services. However, in Los Angeles County, social workers have been on strike, partly for a pay rise, but the internet media coverage has largely been about excessive workloads. And it is broadly positive to the social workers, also unimaginable in social work-hating UK. One of the outcomes of the strike has been the promise to recruit hundreds of extra workers. Hard to imagine that happening in cuts-hit Britain, in spite of the occasional moral panic about child abuse. I see from photos of the strikers, however, that 'child safety now' is an important slogan. Perhaps this is increasingly the social work equivalent of doctors 'shroud-waving'.

Picture by  Mel Melcon, Los Angeles Times.

Press reports: LA Times; South California Public Radio