Good morning! ☀️

And sorry for the long hiatus 😅 I may be going back to school and was studying for a standardized test these past 5+ months.

Moving forward, you can expect this newsletter to arrive in your email inbox on a bi-weekly basis. Also, feel free to reply here or fill out the survey at the bottom and let me know what you want to see in here moving forward.

Question: How many drug overdoses occurred in 2022 and how does this number compare to that in 2015?

News

Former Social Work Students Sue the University of Southern California

“Former University of Southern California (USC) Master of Social Work (MSW) students are suing the university over claims that it did not provide students in the online program with the education promised.”

The University of Southern California has been working alongside 2U, a for-profit company which, according to its website, helps “deliver high-quality digital education at scale.” In other words, 2U works with universities and colleges to deliver online degree programs.

The former students engaged in the lawsuit claim that the University of Southern California “delivered an inferior experience to online students” compared to the in-person program, despite the university’s marketing that the two programs were similar in quality. Furthermore, the alleged lawsuit claims that the university offered an extremely expensive degree which left the former students with “one of the worst debt-to-earnings ratios in the country.”

The median student loan to pay for the degree was $112,000 😞

Other social work-related news

• Keith Doolin, an inmate on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison, California’s oldest correctional institution, has been locked inside a solitary cell for 27 years, often for 23 hours of the day. In that time, he’s never walked without a guard escort; moved without his hands shackled; used a cellphone or laptop; stepped on grass; or eaten a meal with a group of people. But this may change as Governor Gavin Newson announced that he would be transforming San Quentin “into a ‘rehabilitation center’ modeled after facilities in Norway”

• Did you know that there is a mental health hotline for new and expectant parents? It received 12,000 calls and texts in its first year. Share this with someone who may benefit from it.

• After her doctor failed to ask her about a history of sexual assault, Adrienne Baldwin-White, a member of the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University, created an app to help medical professionals better understand how to provide trauma-informed care for survivors of sexual assault

Reads on research

• A study published a few months ago found that, in a small sample of 30 adolescents which analyzed 22,000 messages sent across various platforms, self-focused language which included first-person pronouns such as “I” or “me”, language associated with the present and future, rather than the past, and a greater amount of text, were all indicators of a lower-than-usual mood. This could lead to implementing smart design such as a reminder to go for a walk or stop scrolling when it captures certain patterns.

• Some critics claim that naloxene, a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose, may promote high-risk substance abuse behaviors among adolescents. A new study shows that the opposite may be true, and that naloxene distribution is more consistently related to decreases in heroine and injection drug use among adolescents.

• Young men who use potent marijuana frequently have an increased risk of developing schizophrenia. The study also estimated that 15% of schizophrenia cases in men, and 4% of cases in women, could be averted if the person avoided cannabis

Other reads on policy

• The Washington State Legislature increased penalties for drug possession, but granted defendants access to diversion programs such as drug treatment. This law balanced different interests: Police officers and prosecutors felt that they had been unable to control open drug use and sales effectively, business owners complained that drug use in their communities scared aware customers and left it to them to clean up the residue, and Democrats fought for treatment instead of jail time

• Colorado passed HB23-1133 to make all prison calls free across state prisons and connect families. Colorado is now the 3rd state to do so

• Legislation to require courts to send mental health and intellectual disability information to the government agency that does criminal background checks for gun purchasers has cleared both houses of the Texas Legislature and is on its way to Gov. Greg Abbott for final approval

Tech, social work, and cool opportunities 😎

• “In the past few years, 10,000 to 20,000 apps have stampeded into the mental health space, offering to ‘disrupt’ traditional therapy.” Yet evidence for their efficacy is lacking.

• New treatments for conditions such as opioid addiction, ADHD and insomnia exist on your smartphone in the form of digital therapeutics. Unfortunately, the government won’t pay for them. This leads to a lack of innovation in a field that must work better if we are to deal with the mental health challenges in today’s society

• Can digital psychiatry fill the mental health gaps associated with a lack of mental health professionals? One line of thinking is that apps can never replace the therapeutic relationship. Another is that digital psychiatry can worsen care by providing cheap and ineffective treatments to those “who can’t afford traditional care”. Yet despite this, the movement is not slowing down and we will continue to see an explosion in virtual care apps and businesses.

• Therapists in Tech, a Houston-based nonprofit organization, has published a new database, which allows behavioral health clinicians to review and rate digital mental health companies.

Answer: An estimated 109,680 overdose deaths occurred last year. In 2015, there were an estimated 53,000 overdose deaths.