Richard Bermack

About the Dragon

Award Winning and Selected Articles

Child Welfare Reports

Photography

Heroes of Social work Campaign

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Stop the Black Outs!

ominus photograph of powerlines-- with storm clouds in the background

Labor's 10 Point Plan for Fixing the power crisis

July 2003
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July 2000
April 2000

Dragon child welfare
reports are now
available on line and
can be downloaded


Cover of Social Worker Meltdown report, frantic looking social worker
Social Worker
Meltdown

Cover of the report Portecting Children Retoring Families, It Takes Time
Protecting Children,
Restoring Families,
It Takes Time and

 

Photograph of Senior Organizers and Caucus members
Retirees Wanted
Campaign to organize retired Local 535 Members

WARNING! Dangerous Initiative
STOP THE "Child and Family
Protection ACT"

Imagine!
The New Strength Unity Plan
Local 535 begins discussion of a bold new plan

Nurse Alliance Acute Care Survey finds Patient Care Compromised by Understaffing

Safe Needle Stick Legislation Passed!

President Signs Needle safety Bill, SEIU press release

 

Energy Crisis Blacks Out Child Welfare and Foster Care reform
Take Action:
Urgent Child Welfare UPDATE
Stop the Black Outs!

May 2001

Dragon

Bringing Them Inside
Berkeley Mental Health Clinic
Berkeley Mental Health workers provide services to help people with mental illnesses reclaim their lives.
Case Management versus Therapy
Merylin Senf enjoys being able to directly deal with many of her clients material needs, but she fears that their internal needs my not always get met.
Empowering Clients
James Glenn describes how Berkeley Mental Health uses a nontraditional model of therapy to empower the clients.
A Social Workers Bag of Tricks
Terry Kalahar describes how quoting Nietzsche saved a clients life.
Social Workers Do More
Two interns discuss why they decided to go study social work rather than therapy
Outcomes
Several clients talk about their return from darkness

Alameda County Medical Social Workers
help those without health insurance

Maudelle Shirek with a withe afro looks very statesmanlike
Retired Local 535 Member
Maudelle Shirek
The Vice Mayor of Berkeley
As the oldest elected official in California, she is the poster girl for the senior movement Twenty years ago, when she was 71, they told her she was too old to run a senior center. So she decided that if they wouldn't let her run a senior center then she would run the whole city. Berkeley's lion in winter, Maudelle Shirek,is about to celebrate her 90th birthday.

Making a Difference
Los Angeles Emergency Response Worker Jacob Ocampo

social worker Jacob Ocampo with a young mother and her new baby.
Social worker Jacob Ocampo with one of his former clients, who is now happily married and a new mother

 

Historic Kaiser Agreement
The Kaiser-Labor partnership has resulted in a ground breaking contract! Hear what the nurses have to say about the new agreement.

Wall Street Journal Credits SEIU for
passage of safe needle bill.

Kaiser Nurse Leila Valdevia honored for work on needle stick legislation

 
 
Formerly homeless person with a shoping cart filled with plastic to recylcle talks with homelss outreach worker infront of a hotel room.
Psychiatric Social Worker Matt McGinley (r) checks up on James, who used to live under a freeway overpass.
Berkeley Mental Health Clinic workers use a team approach to provide social services to mentally ill homeless people.
Social worker Eva Ahmed with two homeless men, sitting at a picnic table, under a tree in a park.
Homeless Outreach Worker Eva Ahmed talks with two homeless people living in the park .
Street person siting next to a pole selling a newspaper put out by homeless people, while worker Terry Kalahar sits by him.
Homeless Outreach Worker Terry Kalahar (r) makes sure that Ronnie is getting his medication.

Portrait of Lenora Beers at a desk

Medical Social Worker Lenora Beers


Fighting for the Future of Social Work

social worker with a crying child she is trying to comfort--Children and families in trouble will social workers have time to help

Local 535 Children's Services Committee Plans Social Worker Awareness Campaign

Cover of the report, Protecting Children , Restoring Families, It Takes Time. Photo of a child in a dark hallway staring out into the light.

Dragon child welfare reports are now available on line and can be download. Protecting Children,
Restoring Families,
It Takes Time and
Social Worker Meltdown

social worker with troubled client--Study finds high caseloads preventing social workers from helping children and families

Monumental Child Welfare Study
reveals why the system is failing

 

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