August 2011 Archives

I'm very excited to be once again writing about sheds. I wrote back in January about an Australian project to help men "interact and unburden" in the familiar and comforting surroundings of a shed. But it seems the Aussie shed movement has inspired a similar project in the UK.

Age UK has been running a Men In Sheds pilot project in Greenwich, Nottingham and South Lakeland which aims to provides older men with a shed, tools and equipment so they can "use existing skills, learn new ones and get involved in productive activity, while enjoying the benefits of working in a social group." It always seemed a good idea to me to get social care services out of institutional/health settings. And if you want to find out more, there is a Discovering Men's Sheds conference taking place in Leicester on 29 September.

Elsewhere, Zinc supplements may be a useful add-on treatment for depression although more research is needed.

And Boing Boing has a short post on treating mental illness with cigarettes. Thanks to Rethink for pointing that one out.

Two quick nuggets today: (can you have a "quick nugget"? Anyway...)

Probiotic bacteria may help ease depression and anxiety, research suggests.

And, here are some tips for incorporating positive psychology in your practice.

Fascinating article in the New York Times suggesting we have only a finite amount of mental energy available to make difficult decisions or exert willpower.

This issue may be particularly relevant to those living in poverty as they have to devote a lot of mental energy making the trade-offs required to get by with less money. As a result they may have less mental energy left to exert willpower than wealthier people, argues Princeton economist Dean Spears:

Lapses in self-control have led to the notion of the "undeserving poor" -- epitomized by the image of the welfare mom using food stamps to buy junk food -- but Spears urges sympathy for someone who makes decisions all day on a tight budget.

Apparently glucose can help top up your willpower supplies but that's not exactly helpful for those trying to use their willpower to stay on a diet.

They're trapped in a nutritional catch-22:

1. In order not to eat, a dieter needs willpower.

2. In order to have willpower, a dieter needs to eat.

It makes me wonder whether that's why social workers, who have lots of difficult deciesions to make, like biscuits so much! But there is perhaps a useful lesson in the article:

people with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. They don't schedule endless back-to-back meetings. They avoid temptations like all-you-can-eat buffets, and they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices. Instead of deciding every morning whether or not to force themselves to exercise, they set up regular appointments to work out with a friend. Instead of counting on willpower to remain robust all day, they conserve it so that it's available for emergencies and important decisions.

(Pic: paulinaclemente on flickr) 

"Our results suggest that the emphasis placed on happiness and well-being by positive psychologists and others is warranted," McCarthy said. "In addition to their other benefits, programs and policies that increase childhood and adolescent happiness may have a notable effect on deterring nonviolent crime and drug use."

TV presenter Gail Porter has spoken to the Daily Mail about her experience of being sectioned and being an involuntary in-patient earlier in the year.

And it's hardly an encouraging but sadly not surprising account of life in a psychiatric ward.

'The worst part about being sectioned was the lack of structure,' says Gail. 'There was no treatment programme - we were just locked in the unit and basically forgotten about.'

Happily, the article says Porter is now feeling better and is planning to train as a counsellor.

I have just finished editing Community Care's latest podcast, which is a reflection on this week's riots in England.

You can listen to it using the player below, or go to our podcast page.

My colleagues and I enjoyed an unusually wide-ranging discussion on the general state of the nation and also chatted about some of our favourite opinion pieces of the last few days.

For those interested, here are a few of the pieces we referred to:

We must talk to the rioters, not turn our backs on them

UK riots: 'Being liberal is fine, but we need to be given the right to parent'

Camila Batmanghelidjh: Caring costs - but so do riots

The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom

Why, oh why? The week the pundits ran riot

We also discussed the following Community Care news stories:

Rioters destroy Age Concern ambulance

Rioters stop social workers doing their jobs

New Bill could see looked-after child caseloads rise

An anonymous Community Care reader and social worker has sent in this rather splendid poem:

I've got a caseload that's bigger than yours
It's so large it won't fit in my drawers!
All day long I struggle and sweat
I'm a super-doopa social worker, never take a rest.
I'm so strong and powerful, can take any stress
Allocation meetings, I always say 'YES'
BUT
My manager doesn't know that I'm in a mess
No sleep at night, cos of the stress
Horrible dreams, forms, files and faxes
No escape so it seems
I feel I've done wrong
I feel I have failed
But I've got to keep going
No time for moaning
Caseload keeps growing
Filing cabinets groaning
But in the end it's worth it
I'll get the applause
Cos I'm a super-doopa social worker and my
Caseload is bigger than yours

(Pic: redjar on flickr)

They may well be very nicely designed but I'm usually rather sceptical about people saying they "need" the latest shiny consumer gadget, such as the iPad.

However, in an article in Bizgene, a social worker says it has really helped with her work. Best get down to the office of whoever buys your computer equipment and tell them you need one right away.

(Pic: Tsubaki Kaworu on flickr)

Here is an interesting story about a dog that helped a girl testify at a US rape trial and the ensuing legal debate.

There is a very readable piece in the New York Times about how a man learned to cope with his schizophrenia.

Also, worth a look is the commentary by Shrink Rap, which I think may prompt a debate about diagnosis and recovery.

Meanwhile, here in the UK the Student of the Year Award has been given to a woman who set up a mental health campaign.

The story alerted me for the first time to Mental Healthy, which is the website for Uncovered magazine which says it is "the only newsstand glossy dedicated to providing support and advice to those who are looking to improve their state of mind." I haven't come across it myself (not being much of a glossy reader) but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has read it.

More than two-thirds of the people who voted in our online poll believe the social work degree is out of touch with practice (see below).

Ok, so it wasn't a particularly scientific survey and respondents were self selecting but it's an interesting finding nonetheless and squares with the guest post on this blog suggesting the social work degree was not practical enough.

Of course looking back at my blog over the past week or so, I am struck by its rather contradictory nature. First we have a guest post suggesting the degree needs to dump some of those theories in favour of more practical skills and then a post by me asking whether social work should have more of a grounding in philosophy.

I must say that both arguments appeal to me and this must be the difficulty facing social work educators. Newly qualified social workers need the practical skills to do the job but they also need to understand why they are doing what they are doing. But is the balance right? There are clearly a few people out there who think it isn't.