The Overdiagnosis of Bipolar Disorder Within Marginalized Communities: A Call to Action

This paper argues that the overdiagnosis of bipolar disorder (BD) is an urgent and underrecognized problem within the U.S., threatening to expose vulnerable Americans to heightened stigma and harmful drug effects while disguising the environmental and traumagenic roots of their distress. The paper traces BD overdiagnosis to biomedical assumptions about mental illness and to the decline of social welfare policies over the past twenty-five years. It calls on policymakers to address BD overdiagnosis by revising criteria in the DSM 5, developing psychosocial models of mental illness, and reintroducing protective social welfare programs. Finally, the paper urges social workers to educate themselves about the harms of BD overdiagnosis as well as to recognize their own role in medicalizing their clients’ distress.

Still Fighting: The Relationship Between Contemporary Preemption in the South and the Continued Struggle for Black Worker Rights

Post-Reconstruction Black Codes implemented throughout the South stunted the economic mobility of Black workers and replicated the free labor system of slavery (Nittle, 2021). While these laws were abandoned or outlawed over time (Nittle, 2021; PBS, 2017), the use of contemporary preemption in Southern states acts as a de facto continuation of Black Codes by barring legislation, often from progressive cities and municipalities, that seeks to strengthen rights and protections for Black workers throughout the region. In order to properly understand the unique racial, political, and economic entanglement between twenty-first century preemption and the oppression of Black workers, one must first explore the origins of preemption and the history of Black worker oppression in the South. This examination provides the backdrop for modern attempts to suppress Black workers in states like Alabama and Tennessee. A closer look at the deep political divisions between Southern legislatures and urban municipalities in their states offer arguments, though unfounded and insufficient, in favor of preemption, and outline the challenges worker advocates face when addressing the problem. Despite its challenges, it is critical for organizers to continue fighting preemption using creative strategies and to reaffirm the rights and advancement of Black workers.

The Testimonios of System-Impacted Daughters of Color on Healing from Parental Incarceration

1 in every 25 children in the United States currently has a parent incarcerated in jail or prison. Black and Latinx children make up the majority of this population, as their parents are overrepresented in local jails and state and federal prisons. Parental incarceration affects a child’s behavior, emotional and mental health, social interaction, and financial stability. Daughters of incarcerated parents are particularly affected. This research investigates testimonios (testimonies), a narrative form of counter-storytelling, as a tool to address the traumatic effect of parental incarceration on female children of color. Testimonios give a person agency and allow them to share their unique and nuanced experiences in detail. In-depth interviews demonstrated that testimonios can be an effective healing tool for women who have been impacted by parental incarceration and can improve social service organizations directed towards families affected by incarceration. Testimonios provided space in which daughters of incarcerated parents were able to express their emotions and make sense of their experiences. The interviews also revealed shared themes in the experiences of multiple interviewees.

Violence Against Indigenous Women in the United States: A Policy Analysis

Disproportionate levels of violence, disappearance, and murder are endemic among Indigenous women in the United States (U.S.). The prevalence of such violence has persisted for centuries, with little direct action taken to elevate the issue, protect Indigenous women, and hold individual and systemic perpetrators accountable. As a result, Indigenous women in the U.S. face various forms of violence at 2.5 times the rate of non-Indigenous women, with murder being the third leading cause of death. A staggering 94% of Indigenous women experience sexual violence in their lifetime (Urban Health Institute, 2019). Through an analysis of existing and new legislation aimed at addressing the issue of violence against Indigenous women, we reveal the ways in which policies have fallen critically short of achieving this mission, highlight the strengths of recently enacted legislation, and provide recommendations for implementation in order to truly prevent violence, and therefore to protect and empower Indigenous women.

Unique Causes And Manifestations of Eating Disorders Within Transgender Populations

Transgender populations are disproportionately impacted by eating disorders and disordered eating behaviors; however, transgender clients lack access to affirming and culturally responsive mental health care and are frequently undiagnosed. In addition, conventional treatment models for eating disorders do not attend to the unique causes and manifestations of eating disorders among transgender people, which include: minority stress and gender trauma; gender dysphoria and lack of access to safe, gender-affirming treatment; safety concerns and the need for passing; cissexism and resulting disempowerment; and pervasive, harmful beauty standards coupled with hyper-scrutiny of trans bodies. This project includes a summary and analysis of the existing literature and data regarding the causes of and current treatment recommendations for eating disorders within transgender populations. It also suggests a social-work-led shift within eating disorder treatment to center the sociopolitical forces which so often lead to such diagnoses.

Healthcare Policy: Federally Mandated Insurance Coverage for Infertility Treatment

Approximately 15% of couples in the United States (U.S.) suffer from infertility. Existing infertility treatments and alternate paths to parenthood, such as adoption, are available but financially inaccessible and require self-payment. Although organizations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and World Health Organization (WHO) classify infertility as a disease, the U.S. has not federally mandated insurance coverage for infertility. Currently, only 15 states require insurance companies to offer some type of fertility benefit and these requirements vary across states. This paper discusses the need to federally mandate insurance coverage for infertility in the U.S. Infertility not only causes devastating outcomes for individual families, but affects nearly all demographics across the world. However, national legislation on infertility coverage continues to fail the many couples who suffer from this condition. The paper concludes with implications for social work practice and recommends ways social workers can support this policy movement. Social workers have an ethical duty not only to address clients’ mental and emotional needs, but also to be at the frontlines of policy and to advocate for federal insurance coverage for clients who desperately want to realize their dream of conceiving a child.

Peer Support as a Tool for Community Care: “Nothing About Us, Without Us”

In the face of socio-political marginalization, frontline communities reclaim power by harnessing peer wisdom and resilience. The year 2020 marked the confluence of a global pandemic and widespread resistance against anti-Black racism and police violence, highlighting the value of peer voices and community perspectives. To dismantle and transcend carceral approaches to community care, the field of social work is invited to join a larger anti-carceral mental health movement that honors lived experience and works alongside peers to build identity-affirming structures of mental health care. This article examines the ways in which frontline communities benefit from expanded access to anti-carceral formal and informal peer support as a mental health safety net that interrupts harm and prioritizes agency, consent, and self-determination. This paper broadens social work’s conceptualization of peer support through theoretical frameworks of anti-carceral social work, abolition, and intersectionality. Social work and its adjacent fields are called to urgently center Black liberation, collective healing, and community care by advocating for the integration of formal and informal peer support into mental health policy and practice. This paper strategically leans into a lineage of critical peer thought scholarship by utilizing footnotes and citations to model the ethical acknowledgment of peer labor within human rights movements. This intentional structure promotes radical solidarity that resists the exploitation of people with lived experience.

Time Doesn’t Heal All Wounds: A Call to End Mandated Reporting Laws

Mandated reporting laws are pertinent to practitioners of “helping professions,” such as social workers, doctors, nurses, and teachers. These laws dictate that a professional or student in those fields must report suspected child maltreatment to the state for investigation. The report, as well as the investigation that follows, has the potential to result in removal and separation of children from their parents or caretakers. The child welfare system of which mandated reporting is a component has a cruel history of racism and white supremacy, as well as prejudice towards those experiencing poverty, disabilities, mental health concerns, homelessness, and substance use disorders. This research examines the disproportionate harm the child welfare system has on Black and Brown individuals, particularly in New York, and how the system has used mandated reporting laws to further marginalize oppressed communities since the 1970s. This research indicates the need to comprehensively reimagine the erroneously named “child welfare system” starting with repealing mandated reporting laws in the United States.