All posts by Dr. Michael Forster

As Mississippi considers placing more armed personnel in our schools – Lt. Gov. Reeves has just proposed a new $7.5 million program to do so – here’s an eye-opening tidbit sourced from Bloomberg News: Firearm fatalities are on track to exceed traffic fatalities in America for the first time by 2015.  While motor vehicle deaths are on the decline (dropping 22% from ’05 to ’10), gun fatalities are trending in the other (wrong) direction.  The 2015 crossover point will occur at somewhere between 32,000 and 33,000 deaths.

There’s no doubt that the Lt. Gov. wants to protect kids and prevent gun-related deaths, as surely do all parties engaged on every side of the rancorous debate over gun safety.  But it’s hard to buy that the best way to do so is to multiply the number people in public schools “packing heat.”

Evidently, there’s little harmony over health care in state Republican ranks.  Insurance commissioner Mike Chaney submitted a proposal for a state health exchange – a feature of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that will allow consumers to shop for suitable insurance plans – in November.  Not only is it the law, argues Mr. Chaney, but it’s the best way for Mississippi to exercise control over its health care destiny.  Governor Phil Bryant disagrees – really with all things Obamacare, but specifically with Chaney’s submission – arguing that he alone (as governor), and not Chaney (a mere insurance commissioner), has the authority to submit a proposal to the federal government.

Bryant’s rationale has the advantage of brevity, if not logic - he says he just “doesn’t trust the feds.”  Chaney’s response, according to the Associated Press, which obtained a copy of a letter Chaney sent last week to Bryant, is also pithy: If you don’t trust the feds,governor, why let them run your exchange?  – which will happen under the law for any state that doesn’t develop its own plan.

Quite the intra-party dust-up.  One would hope that state leaders can manage not only to get on the same page, but to get it right.  Mississippi’s health care picture is bad enough; it shouldn’t suffer further from self-inflicted wounds.

2013 just might turn out to be the year we fully embrace prevention and health promotion.  Let’s hope so.  Focusing on prevention, of chronic diseases in particular, is the right thing, the smart thing, and the only thing that makes sound economic sense.  The harsh reality is that continuing our habitual focus on clinical treatment (more doctor visits, more tests, more drugs) will just enable us to keep getting sicker, and break the bank in the process.

The (literally) biggest problem facing Mississippi is, of course, obesity.  Turning back the trend of rising obesity is the key to preventing a host of chronic health problems, and hence at least one major piece of the puzzle of controlling health care costs.

Obesity is no respecter of class, race, or gender.  Anybody can be fat, sick, or both.  But the greatest challenge lies in combating obesity among the poor, and especially poor children.  That’s why the smart move for Mississippi is to take advantage of the opportunity to expand Medicaid offered by Obamacare, and to pour new resources into obesity prevention and health promotion.  The short-term costs might be high, but those will be shouldered by the feds; the long-term benefits, in both health and economics, will be ours.

Horrific events like the Newton mass murder naturally rivet the national attention, at least while the horror remains fresh.  Who knows?  The shock and perceived need to “do something” this time around may be urgent enough to spur new policy bans on assault weapons and large-capacity automatic weapon magazines.  (At least lots of Mississippians think so, based on news reports that gun and ammo sales have spiked dramatically in the aftermath of Newton.)

But we shouldn’t forget that lethal violence is an everyday matter in America.  Guns kill 85 people per day on average.  Violence is the second leading cause of death for young Americans aged 10-24.  Nearly 2,000 young people, moreover, are treated for physical assault-related injuries in hospital emergency rooms every day.  Anything responsible for that much damage to the health and well-being of the population deserves to be designated a major public health threat, and demands a major response.

We need more than a new law here and there.  We need a comprehensive review of factors contributing to the continuous danger, followed by serious and systematic reform.  Every feature of guns – from access to safety features – needs to be looked at, especially in urban areas.  Availability of mental health services (at present a national disgrace) needs to be looked at.  The saturation of our “entertainment” culture with violence and death needs to be looked at.  Promising approaches to community violence prevention, such as the CITI project in Chicago (more about this in a later blog), need to be examined and promoted.

We need nothing short of a sustained commitment to reform and to reverse the continuous tide of daily, “ordinary,” violence in our nation.  The public’s health demands it.  The victims of the Newton massacre, and every other mass killing before it, deserve nothing less.

On Thusday night, the School of Social Work held its customary recognition ceremony for graduating BSW and MSW students at the Thad Cochran Center.  Following are my remarks to the graduates:

This is, to be sure, a great occasion.  I add to Dr. Rehner’s my enthusiastic welcome to everyone here tonight.  Graduates, I heartily congratulate you on your achievement.

But graduates, listen carefully now.  You have your work cut out for you.  Our state, our nation, and our world need social workers today more than ever.  That statement may sound like hyperbole, but I think it’s the cold, literal truth (it’s “evidence-based,” you might say…). 

The crises continue to pile up, do they not?  Poverty and all the ills associated with poverty – hunger, homelessness, lack of access to quality education, health care, and jobs, domestic violence – are way up, affecting large and growing numbers of people.  Income insecurity for even the “middle class” is on the rise, as real wages fall.  We have a health crisis, a health care crisis, and an aging crisis, all starting now to converge.  We have a mental health crisis as well, exacerbated by a heavy stream of veterans severely damaged by our military adventures abroad, and large number of victims of increasingly frequent “natural” disasters, most likely brought on by climate change.  Indeed, disaster and trauma may well be the watchwords of the new era we are entering.

And there’s good reason to fear that we’re just on the front end of worse to come.  The sheer momentum of negative forces is pulling us downward – in our state, in our nation, in our world.  And sadly, the ability of government to respond effectively is severely constrained, crimped by the dominance of “austerity” thinking and love for the “free market,” the belief that government can only create, but never solve, problems, and, worst of all, the “capture” of the political process by powerful interests (notably “Wall Street” and the “1%”) intent on protecting their privileged positions at the expense of the 99 per cent – that would be us, and the people we serve.

It is a daunting situation that we face.  Yet I suggest to you, graduates, that social workers need to be in the lead of response to the great challenges ahead.  They need to be leaders in building resilience, in building relationships of mutual aid, relationships of support and trust, relationships of community and civility and life-sustaining interdependence in a dangerous and chaotic world under tremendous stress.  More than ever, they need to be leaders in challenging damaging power structures and in empowering the disempowered to gain meaningful control of their lives.

But why social workers?  Why us especially?  Well, who else is better equipped than we are?  Who else has the knowledge that we have?  Who else has the skills necessary?  Above all, who else has the values up to the task of protecting and preserving our humanity?  Let us never forget that social work is first and foremost a values profession; our knowledge base and our skills are built atop a solid foundation of core values – the values of a universal humanity, of compassion, of loving and competent care, and of community; the values of clearly and unequivocally taking sides in favor of the powerless, the marginalized, the disadvantaged, the victims; and, most important of all, the value of justice. 

Above all else, this – the struggle for justice at every level, every setting, every system – must be our passionate commitment.  (And if you’re wondering about what “justice” entails, more than anything it is about equality, both economic and political, and it is about peace.  Without justice there can be no peace, but without peace there will be no justice.  But that can be a deep subject, so we’ll leave it alone tonight….)

The struggle for justice and a humane world is who we are; it defines and “makes” us.  The particular job we have, let alone the agency we work for, does not make us social workers.  The license to use the title of “social worker,” however important, does not make us social workers.  Mastering the latest jargon and even the most current, most advanced intervention techniques, also very important, does not make us social workers.  That defining status belongs alone to the fight to change the world for the better, to change it in favor of equality, peace, and justice – in favor of people who are hurting and need our help to make for themselves better, more humane and dignified, lives.

Graduates, you have your work cut out for you, indeed.  But I have no doubt that you – arm-in-arm with each other, and with those others who went before you, and with still others who will come up yet after you – you are up to the task, you have been prepared and you are fit for the work that needs to be done.

Congratulations and good luck.