Less than a week until Donald Trump is President of the United States. (How surreal is that sentence?)
I’m not a big “trigger warning/NSFW” guy but this video might not be for everyone. Let the resistance begin…
Less than a week until Donald Trump is President of the United States. (How surreal is that sentence?)
I’m not a big “trigger warning/NSFW” guy but this video might not be for everyone. Let the resistance begin…
I’ve been watching the growth of social workers in libraries with great interest.
I think the first I heard of the idea was when San Francisco Public Library got one. Now it’s spreading to other urban centres across the US and Canada – Winnipeg, Edmonton, Thunder Bay are just a sample of some Canadian libraries where this idea has been implemented.
(Something I hadn’t come across before researching this post but which also makes sense is that some libraries are also adding Public Health Nurses to their staff complements as well.)
Today, I see that Kitchener Ontario has become the latest public library to have a social worker available to provide those specialized skills and knowledge that library staff simply don’t have though they try their best:
Even in the absence of such formal programs, librarians often feel they must help users find shelter, food, and other public services, as more and more people seem to fall between the cracks. Partly, this is because they get to know patrons, especially those who come in on a regular basis.
I can’t see too many downsides for everyone involved – although libraries value their role as an open and accessible space for all citizens, they also aren’t meant to act as daytime homeless shelters. So having a social worker on staff helps disadvantaged patrons to get the external supports they need, it reduces the need for library staff to act as quasi-social workers, it makes for a more comfortable and inviting space for other patrons who are using the library if they encounter fewer people who are using the library as a homeless shelter/shower stall/self-injection site because they’re being directed to other agencies better suited to provide those services.
I’m not even at RPL’s Central Library but I have a long list of interactions where I’ve felt more like a social worker than a librarian at my branch – trying my best to help patrons who are homeless and/or addicted and/or mentally ill and/or dealing with all other manner of personal issues.
Honestly, in some ways, it’s a part of the job I enjoy the most. But at the same time, I often feel like I’m “making it up as a I go along” since I don’t have the in-depth formal training that would likely result in better overall outcomes for so many of the people I interact with regularly who would benefit from the knowledge and guidance of a professional social worker.
I was looking back and realised that the shirt and pants I wore to tell stories to some kids in a summer reading program two years ago…
…are the same ones I wore this past summer.
(I have no photographic evidence of what I wore for the school visit in summer 2015 but I suspect it was likely the same combo that appears to be my “Go To” storytelling outfit!) 😉
Lots of great humour about the reports that Donald Trump paid Russian prostitutes to urinate on him.
The absolute funniest part to me is that a guy who makes up shit, lies freely, changes his story regularly and was helped greatly by “fake news” is now being undermined by an unsubstantiated rumour.
Someone joked that this scandal is what the Internet was invented for. Here’s some of the *many* jokes and puns I’ve seen…
“I’m not going to validate that report by sharing the most salacious details from it, even the detail everyone’s talking about. You might call it the number one detail. I think this is just an unfortunate leak. That’s making a huge mess. And I know I’m being a wet blanket, but reporting on this is the worst kind of yellow journalism. Even though jokes about this story are a golden opportunity, I won’t do it. Not to say the story didn’t make a huge splash. It did. It flooded Twitter. We’ll keep you updated as facts trickle in. We have our best researcher working on it. She’s a real whizz. And one thing is for sure: The president-elect is a Goldwater Republican who believes in trickle-down. So no, no, I’m not going to make any jokes, not even a wee one. So, I’m cutting it off now. I am finished. Wait! A little more is coming out! It happens sometimes. But after eight years of listening to Trump make unsubstantiated claims about Obama’s birth certificate, I don’t think this matters if this is true or not, because the fact is, it’s out there, and that means, Mr. Trump, you’re in trouble.”
Obama gives a heartfelt, inspiring, intelligent farewell address.
Trump has it leaked that he may have paid Russian hookers to urinate on him. :-0
(The claim about Trump is unsubstantiated but it comes from a reliable source in the UK intelligence community, the US intelligence community apparently brought these allegations to the President which they don’t do lightly and isn’t it delightful that Mr. “Say Whatever Shit He Wants No Matter How Insane” is getting some of his own medicine either way?)
Meryl Streep gave a great speech while accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globes last night criticizing Donald Trump without once mentioning him by name.
He reacted like a big crybaby as usual. (Hint: There’s no way on earth that the most decorated actress of all-time is “over-rated” even though that’s the go-to word in your limited vocabulary.)
Anyhow, “S.O.S” seems appropriate today with the Presidential Inauguration less than two weeks away…