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"In Caddo Parish, in Shreveport, Louisiana, four out of five kids don't come back [to juvenile court]," said Henry Walker of Caddo Parrish Juvenile Services. "The one of out of five who do come back, come back constantly." According to Walker, the youth who do avoid regular run-ins with the law do so because they have mentors. At the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative's April 2017 convening in Orlando, Florida, youth workers reflect on the proactive impact mentors can have on the...

Register for the MARC Brown Bag Webinar with Kathryn Evans Madden , Community Organizing: Resistance and Resilience (June 20th, 12-12:45pm ET). **Only a few seats left** VISIT: MARC.HealthFederation.org/BrownBag While you're there, check out the video and slides from the Brown Bag Webinar on June 14th with Sandra Bloom , Healthy Systems are Trauma-Informed and Trauma-Responsive , and see the line-up for more great sessions! Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities (MARC) is a learning...

Beleaguered former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was in the news again recently when a excerpt from her 1996 book It Takes a Village turned up on Twitter. In the selected passage, Clinton described prison labor in questionable terms during her time living in Arkansas’s governor’s mansion in the 1980s: View image on Twitter Jeanette��Corbynista @JeanetteJing Maher said "house n*" and Clinton used prison labor at her mansion for ten yrs bc it was "a longstanding tradition which kept...

“This is a war against normal life.” So said CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward, describing the situation at this moment in Syria, as well as in other parts of the Middle East. It was one of those remarks that should wake you up to the fact that the regions the United States has, since September 2001, played such a role in destabilizing are indeed in crisis, and that this process isn’t just taking place at the level of failing states and bombed-out cities, but in the most personal way...

At a recent retreat I facilitated focused on social change, a diverse group of people gathered, from company and foundation executives to grassroots activists and public housing residents. Their goal? To confront their own biases, form relationships across differences, and start to rebuild trust in their community. In our politically polarized society, the authentic conversations they had about race, religious differences, and our country’s often painful history were rare, courageous, and...

In mock courtrooms supervised by a local judge, first-time teen offenders face a jury of their peers and receive sentences that often keep them in school and out of the juvenile justice system for minor crimes. Combined with other statewide efforts such as promoting restorative justice techniques in schools and eliminating zero tolerance policies, youth courts are helping to reduce the number of incarcerated teens in California charged with minor crimes. “We catch these kids early, and it’s...

Five years ago, President Barack Obama made an announcement that would drastically change the lives of up to 1.9 million young immigrants who moved to the United States as children. On June 15, 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) was born, temporarily deferring deportations and providing renewable two-year work permits for eligible undocumented youth. Today, nearly 790,000 young people have received DACA and, as a result, have experienced significant improvements...

On the day of his senior prom, Diego Ismael Puma Macancela was cowering in a bedroom closet, hiding from immigration officers as they pounded on doors outside. Puma Macancela, a 19-year-old high school student in Ossining, N.Y., expected the authorities would be looking for him. A day before, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had arrested and detained his mother, an undocumented Ecuadoran immigrant who entered the U.S. illegally with him two years ago. With his mother in ICE custody,...

If the Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA) becomes law, the uninsured rate for children would increase by a whopping 50% by 2026 according to a new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Center’s report is based on a deeper dive into the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the AHCA that was passed by the House of Representatives last month. Approximately three million more children would lose health insurance by 2026 according to the Center’s estimates. [For more of...

An exceptional all-day “Trauma-Informed Training for Clergy” event was held in Philadelphia in May 2017, organized by JSR Educational Enrichment Strategies, Inc. Founder and President Doris Smith-Ribner, Retired PA State Appeals Court Judge. Judge Smith-Ribner recognized the need for this training particularly for those on the front lines of dealing with the impacts of trauma and its prevalence within Philadelphia—the Clergy. Here is her report from that meeting. Highly-regarded trauma...

Drugs, mainly opioids, are killing Americans at a record rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the country quadrupled between 1999 and 2010—and compared to the numbers we’re seeing now, those were the good old days. Some 30,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2010. According to a new estimate from the New York Times, double that number died last year. And the rate of increase in overdose deaths was growing, up a stunning 19% over 2015. The Times estimate of between 59,000 and 65,000...

Finding children’s books with characters that look like her daughter has not been easy for Felisha Burleson of Dallas, Texas. Burleson says trips to the library with 9-year-old Niyah, who’s Mexican and African American, are often discouraging. Like many parents of color, she rarely can find books featuring people like them. “I haven't found any books so far for [Niyah] to read that reflect either my family's racial or structural composition,” Burleson said. “I think it’s very important she...