The California Violence Intervention & Prevention Program hosted the San Diego Cal-VIP Event 4.29.21 . Please click HERE to view the Facebook Live event.

By Anne Stuhldreher, Cal Matters, April 27, 2021 Growing up, Blossom Sergejev was lucky if she talked to her mother once a week. Usually it was once a month. Even then their conversations ended almost as soon as they started. She and her brother and sister had a timer to make sure all three got their fair share of their mother’s time – five minutes each. “There was no small talk on those calls, and it wasn’t at all light-hearted,” Sergejev says. “We got down to the grit of what was going...

By Katie Jane Fernelius, The Appeal, April 21, 2021 In recent years, prosecutors on a mission to challenge mass incarceration have been using their power to keep people out of prison, but now they’re beginning to turn their attention to those who are already locked up. Few have pursued this as promptly and publicly as Jason Williams, the new district attorney of New Orleans, who may be setting the bar for DAs nationwide. And this focus could be transformative in New Orleans, the largest city...

Education for Liberation requires bold critique, creative acts, and, particularly for teachers, a willingness to take risks outside the status quo. Below we offer suggestions based on the ways many teachers and other youth advocates are building the capacity to challenge the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). We know teachers are already practicing, generating and sharing other interventions. This is not a checklist of must-dos, nor is it an exhaustive list or intended to apply to every...

The United States now has 2.3 million people behind bars of some form or another. These are not 2.3 million isolated individuals—their imprisonment sends reverberations into their families and communities. On any given day, 2.7 million children have a parent in prison. Incarcerating that parent removes a source of financial and emotional support for both children and adult family members. For families who are already in economically precarious situations, removing a parent can plunge them...

By Inside Edition staff, February 8, 2020 Once a week, yoga teacher Chanda Williams walks through the gates at San Quentin Prison with her yoga mat under her arm to teach a class. She’s an instructor with the Prison Yoga Project, a non-profit organization that brings the ancient practice behind the walls of correctional facilities across the world to help inmates heal their trauma. Williams says it’s her way of trying to help break the cycle of incarceration many prisoners find themselves...

Donna Jackson Nakazawa ( photo by Marshall Clarke ), award winning science journalist and author of Angel and the Assassin , will join Dr. Mimi Graham , director of Florida State University's Center for Prevention and Early Intervention Policy , Andrea Darr , creator of Handle With Care, Captain Lovetta Quinn-Henry , from the Orlando Police Department and many more featured at the conference. Help your community move the needle toward a trauma-informed, resilient community by learning from...

Dr. Chan Hellman, leading researcher in the power of hope to improve lives of impoverished children and families who have experienced abuse and neglect, Justice Dawn Beam, and Christopher Freeze, co-chair of Mississippi ACEs Connection , on day three of presentations by Hellman to judges and staff members of Mississippi's Youth Courts. “Hope is a better predictor of college success than the ACT or the SAT score” was one of the startling comments made by Chan Hellman, Ph.D., in the first of...

By Sabra Ayres, Spectrum News 1, April 12, 2021 When Nadia Kerr joined a program for incarcerated mothers a year into her 20-year prison sentence, she hoped it would help her maintain some kind of relationship with her two daughters while she did her time. At first, the visitations with her daughters, organized by Girls Embracing Mothers, a Dallas-based nonprofit, kept Kerr out of trouble in the Hilltop Unit Prison for Women in Gatesville, Texas. The visits allowed Kerr to hug and to talk...

Abstract The integration of peer mentors with a history of incarceration is a strengths-based intervention, primarily emerging within large urban U.S. cities. The Credible Messenger Institute is an innovative training program that aims to prepare adults who were formerly incarcerated to mentor justice-involved youth. Through two focus groups, this study explored the change experiences of 11 peer mentors who participated in the 6-week training. Data analysis revealed five themes and one...

Amid a pandemic that shined a harsh light on domestic violence , Californians are increasingly viewing these abuses as a pressing social issue, according to a new survey of nearly 2,000 adults. Two-thirds of Californians consider domestic violence a public issue rather than private family matter, and 91% of participants said domestic violence is a serious societal issue, the survey found. “This info has given some validation to things folks have been talking about for a long time...

By Robert Price, Bakersfield.com, March 27, 2021 You might say Shawanna Vaughn got off to a bad start. Born in a California state women’s rehabilitation prison to a drug-addicted mother and assigned to the state foster care system as a toddler, her destiny must have seemed preordained. Books with first chapters like hers usually don’t end well. For a time, the arc of her young life had a hopeful trajectory. Her foster care experience in Bakersfield was fulfilling and positive, thanks mostly...