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A new plan unveiled by Elkhart County staff Wednesday calls for a major reconfiguration in how children, particularly those with potential health issues, should be treated in the county’s juvenile justice system. The project calls for building a Juvenile Resource Center, which would screen and assess youth accused of delinquency to determine the most appropriate intervention. Those actions could include anything from requiring mental health treatment to detention. The goal, however, is to...

In the U.S., the debate around the minimum wage does not lack controversy, but it does lack up-to-date research. Academic studies on the effects of raising hourly pay—especially to $15, which has become something of a magic number for progressive cities and states—have not kept pace with the whirlwind movement . And relatively little research has focused on the non-economic impacts of such significant wage bumps: for example, how they affect the health of infants. This is no arbitrary...

A 35-year-old man with a history of mental illness found cold on the sidewalk. A 38-year-old man cocooned in a blanket on the street, who neighbors heard “ moaning ” before going silent. A 56-year-old woman discovered in an open lot near an underpass. Another woman, age 50, found unresponsive at a friend’s home. A 32-year-old man who security guards caught passed out in an upscale shopping mall’s toilets. [For more of this story, written by John Metcalfe, go to ...

As many as one billion children under the age of 18 experience some form of violence every year. This exposure is not only a violation of child rights; it can also hamper children’s cognitive development, mental health, educational achievement, and long-term labor market prospects. Meanwhile, an estimated 1.9 billion people in 136 countries benefit from some type of social safety net, such as cash transfers and public works that target the poor and vulnerable—presenting a vast policy...

In 2007, Anne Mahlum was living in Philadelphia. She had a habit of waking up early to exercise; each morning, her route took her by a homeless shelter. Even at dawn, there were people out in front. One morning, they waved. As Mahlum built up a rapport with her early-morning neighbors, she started thinking: Why am I running past them when I could run with them? Mahlum had started running as a teenager to cope with troubles at home. Maybe, she thought, running could help other people the same...

Twenty-three percent of homeless youth have pets, according to research from a team led by Harmony Rhoades at the University of Southern California . The team surveyed 398 homeless youth at two drop-in centers in Los Angeles. While previous studies have shown that pets can be very important to homeless young people, this is the first quantitative study to look at pet ownership, mental health, and the use of services among this group. Eighty-eight percent of the young people in the study had...

Tennessee’s ranking on overall child well-being slipped from 36 to 38, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2016 KIDS COUNT® Data Book released on June 21. The change was largely driven by worsening economic indicators. The KIDS COUNT Data Book ranks child well-being in states across four domains. Tennessee’s overall ranking at 38 was compiled from its rankings of 42 on Economic Well-Being, 36 on Education, 28 on Health and 39 on Family and Community. Each domain is made up of four...

Much has been written about how a child’s environment can hurt or help their development in the first crucial years of life. Researchers have established that poor children who grow up in poor neighborhoods are less likely to succeed than poor children who grow up in wealthier neighborhoods, and last month, I wrote about how a person’s chance of success plays out on the level of a city block. Zooming in even farther, in a recent study from Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland,...

"One morning before math, the fourth-graders took a little vacation. To soft music, they walked through woods, climbed a mountain and lifted off with imaginary wings, flying over an ocean, a gentle breeze on their faces. One student saw a school of fish; another spotted a rainbow. “I see it!” the others piped in, their eyes squeezed tight. “I see it, too!” With the sound of a chime, they were back in their yellow-and-blue school uniforms in a classroom overlooking a blighted neighborhood...

The summer break is upon us and right now parents and teachers are taking a much-deserved deep breath before jumping into the new school year. One of the programs Echo provides each summer is the salary point Trauma- Informed Compassionate Classrooms training to help educators meet their professional development requirements and to give them the space to think about the classroom environment they would optimally like to create while not yet inundated with the day-to- day demands of the...

Article written by Sandra L. Bloom, MD In 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot by an assassin—one bullet to his arm and another to his back. Physicians rushed to care for him, believing that he had survivable injuries. The discovery of microbes as the origin of infectious processes was still new, and although Joseph Lister’s pioneering work in antisepsis was known to American doctors, and Lister himself had visited America in 1876, few doctors had confidence in it, and none of the...

The first contact with the juvenile justice system presents an enormous opportunity for the court, court personnel, attorneys and service providers to impact the lives of children and their families. In many states, first contact happens within the context of the Child in Need of Services (CHINS), Families in Need of Services (FINS) and Persons in Need of Services (PINS). In all cases, the “need of services” is paramount. First contact with the Juvenile Court must be taken seriously, and the...