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E-Newsletter • November 2025 |
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Editor's E-Note
Rural communities often have a greater need for social services, typically based on their geographic location and proximity to health care facilities. Rural communities have become areas of particular interest, especially for social workers, who want to make it so that those living there have access to whatever care they may need. This month’s exclusive discusses just that: diving into the efforts of social workers to make youth substance prevention programs more readily accessible in such communities.
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Enjoy the newsletter.
— Josh Hildebrand, editor |
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| In This E-Newsletter
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WVU Researchers Take Youth Substance Use Prevention Into Rural Communities
West Virginia University (WVU) public health researchers are working collaboratively with local partners, like county health departments, to stop drug use in youth before it starts, driving federal grant money to some of the state’s poorest counties and developing approaches tailored to individual communities.
“We are trying to build an infrastructure to really change the way we operate drug prevention in rural Appalachia,” says Alfgeir Kristjansson, codirector of the West Virginia Prevention Research Center in the WVU School of Public Health. “Instead of saying, ‘I’ve got this one intervention that everybody needs to use,’ let’s start by collecting data, and based on that, collaborate with local partners to decide what kind of interventions are best for each community.”
Youths living in rural areas have higher rates of substance use than those in urban areas. But limited resources and a mistrust of external expertise are among the challenges rural communities face in adopting and sustaining programs to reduce or prevent substance use, Kristjansson explains.
With a five-year, $6.7 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Kristjansson will expand an existing pilot project for preventing drug use in kids to encompass approximately 140 schools in 36 of the state’s most rural counties. The specific locations are yet to be determined.
In the pilot project, funded by the CDC, the West Virginia Prevention Research Center has collaborated with local stakeholders in Fayette and Wyoming counties over the past six years, collecting data through student surveys and working with community leaders on plans for preventing substance use in youth. The data helped those counties acquire nearly $5 million in grants and increased community participation in drug prevention activities in response to “practice-based research findings tailored for local decision-making,” Kristjansson says.
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Overhauling Pittsburgh Public Safety Program
“Co-response teams,” pairing mental health professionals with law enforcement officers, were started in Pittsburgh in 2023. However, various unforeseen issues made it difficult for the social workers on scene. Reforms to the system are underway, wherein first responders can request a co-response team if it is necessary.
Minnesota Schools Struggling
Without much federal money and a system with glaring gaps, Minnesota schools are struggling to meet students’ mental health needs. Those closest to the issue say that more resources are required to continue providing students with aid.
Library Program Connects People With Social Workers
A library program that grants those in need access to social workers is showing promise in North Carolina. According to WFDD, since its inception, it has helped serve over 600 people.
Connecting Older Adults With Smartphones
Smartphones keep us all connected, but often, older adults struggle to use them. A social worker from South Korea developed a program to help teach older adults how to use smartphones in order to better connect with friends and loved ones. |
Experiencing Transcendence Reimagines Addiction and Trauma Recovery—Moving Beyond Lifelong Struggle to True Freedom
Can you truly recover from addiction, not just manage it for life? In Experiencing Transcendence: The Freedom of Recovering From Addiction and Trauma (released October 2025), leading addiction recovery expert Richard Taite and global resilience researcher Constance Scharff, PhD, make a bold claim: Complete recovery is possible. Unlike traditional programs that frame addiction as a chronic illness requiring lifelong abstinence, Experiencing Transcendence reimagines recovery as a transformative process, one that leads to a state of wholeness, presence, and love so complete that a person can live fully, freely, and without fear of relapse. Once the underlying trauma is healed, the need to self-medicate disappears. Taite and Scharff aim to revolutionize how addiction and trauma are treated, shifting care toward love-based, outcomes-driven practices that improve lives.
Built around the Stages of Change model, the book introduces a newly defined sixth stage, Transcendence, which moves readers beyond maintenance into a joyful state of self-acceptance and empowerment. Through composite case studies, neuroscience insights, and practical exercises, the authors show how resilience, compassion, and agape (unconditional) love are the gateways to permanent transformation.
What makes Experiencing Transcendence different?
- It challenges the long-held “chronic illness” model of addiction treatment.
- It reframes recovery as achievable, complete, and deeply joyful.
- It integrates trauma healing, neuroscience, and lived experience.
- It provides a replicable framework for individuals and treatment centers to achieve lasting freedom.
Key themes include the following:
- addiction and trauma recovery as complete and transformative;
- the Sixth Stage of Change: Transcendence;
- resilience, compassion, and agape love as pathways to healing; and
- posttraumatic growth and reclaimed self-agency through connection and purpose.
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The nation's top employers and recruiters of social workers advertise in Social Work Today magazine and post their job openings on AHCJobBoard.com. Check out the most recent opportunities that have been submitted by employers across the country!
Featured Employers
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