Alison Leslie 4/22/25 Alison Leslie 4/22/25

Is This Goodbye? The Community We Find in Infertility

When you are in the midst of infertility, the weight of the unknown is the only constant. You don’t know how long you will be navigating this journey. You don’t know what medical interventions you may or may not need. You don’t know what the impact will be on your body, your relationships, or your partner. You don’t even know if your journey will end with the baby you have so desperately been wishing and hoping for. Yet in my own infertility journey, I began to depend on something that felt in the moment like one of my only respites from the crushing weight of the unknown: the community of people going through the same pain, heartbreak, and tentative hope of trying to conceive.

Paid Placements in Social Work: Addressing Inequity and Student Well-Being (Policy Brief)

Guided by the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics, social work is expected to be at the forefront of advocating for social change. Integral to social work is the field education or practicum component. Field education allows social work students the opportunity to apply their skills in work settings, integrating their classroom learning with applied practice. Yet these placements can place undue economic burden on social work students, exacerbating an economic divide and leading to an increased expectation of unpaid or underpaid labor in social work. This policy brief examines the impact of these unpaid placements on students’ well-being and provides recommendations to address current disparities.

Experiencing COVID-19 on the spectrum: perceptions of healthcare access among autistic adults during a global pandemic and implications for social workers

The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) required substantial changes in socialization to mitigate the spread of the virus. Stay-at-home and social distancing mandates required changes in work, school, and healthcare access for autistic adults. This qualitative online netnographic study utilized a public online forum to examine 1,102 posts detailing the experiences of COVID-19 by autistic adults from March 2020 to December 2020. We found two main themes related to seeking behavioral health services and seeking support related to service delays and barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Implications for social work practice and supporting autistic people in navigating healthcare access are discussed.