C0VID-19: Social Work Responds

  Can COVID-19 Increase the Rate of Suicide? I know COVID-19 pandemic has been a peculiar experience for all of us. First, we heard about the rising rates of COVID cases in other countries. Then, a particular individual who leads this country said that we had nothing to worry about, “claiming the virus was like a flu and would disappear miraculously” (Kaczynski, 2020). Soon after these statements the corona virus arrived in Chicago, IL, quickly spread throughout the country, and became the epidemic that we now know as COVID-19 pandemic. Many of us know people who have contracted the virus, and some of us may even know individuals who have died from the virus. If you contract this infectious virus it could be a horrific experience, but did you know the Corona Virus isn’t only going to affect people’s physical health? According to Dr. Nandini Chakraborty, “a study looking at the emotional indicators in a group of Weibo users before and after the declaration of COVID‐19 on January, 20...

  Is COVID-19 to Blame? Since the corona virus pandemic has begun, thousands of small, minority owned businesses in the United States have closed. As a matter of fact, the number of Black-owned business owners has fallen over 40% since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. A report from the National Board of Economic Research found “the number of African-American business owners plummeted from 1.1 million in February 2020 to 640,000 in April 2020. The 440,000-owner loss represents 40% of the businesses. Although the United States saw a total drop of 3.3 million (or 22 percent) active business owners, the number of Black-owned businesses was disproportionately high compared to others.  One example of Covid-19 negatively impacting a minority owned businesses is a Chinese restaurant near my house. This restaurant has been open for about 10 years and they were a hit with locals – the food was good and priced right. However, because of Covid-19, the family owned restaurant was...

Last year was a big year for my husband and I. We celebrated my master’s graduation, his undergraduate graduation, and his admission into his dream grad school. We also went downtown to celebrate the attainment of his U.S. citizenship alongside individuals from more than 25 different countries! We marveled at these milestones every chance we could. We traveled, had get-togethers with our loved ones, planned outings, and prepared for what we anticipated would be as normal a school year as any other we had experienced. Not for one second did we expect that 2019 would be the last year for us to experience life as we knew it. When word about a novel virus started circulating in early 2020, it was hard to envision anything different than what the world had seen with other viruses and diseases. We had (at least somewhat) managed SARS, West Nile, HIV, and MERS, isolating cases, inhibiting global spread, and even identifying feasible treatment plans in some cases. We were invincible, with med...

 When you first meet someone, you introduce yourself. I am Melissa Thompson, Clinical Assistant Professor of Social Work at Dominican University. I am delighted you found this blog. Why?  Because it's important and it has the goal of adding important knowledge to social work at a perilous time. Graduate students taking Social Work and Health will be researching and writing for this blog throughout the semester.  We agreed that during times of crisis, the United States has a history of amplifying discrimination against marginalized, vulnerable and oppressed groups and we are seeing so many examples of this each day.  The purpose of this blog it to raise awareness of the impact OVID-19 has had on the groups and communities social workers serve and the role social work can play in mitigating the impacts of this global pandemic. Using technology for health outcomes is nothing new, but for many students, onsite field placements are a challenge to find. Since the pandemic ...