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A mission is never finished till it’s actually complete. Sounds obvious, of course, but it’s something I didn’t recognize until I left Afghanistan — after my mission was technically “done.” Growing up, all I ever wanted was to have a mission. It was something that was I born and bred to do. In my family, military service goes back four generations to my great-grandfather, who served in WWI. But, to be honest, I mostly just wanted to be an Airborne Ranger. Those are the meanest dudes on the...

The Chronicle of Social Change is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 10 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships. The program is overseen each summer by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. Each of the FYI participants crafted a policy recommendation during their time in Washington, D.C. Today we highlight the recommendation of Calli Crowder, 25, a...

The controversy that swept Southern states over Confederate monuments is spreading across the nation, as cities contend with calls to remove statues depicting stereotyped and subjugated Native Americans. Among them: a sculpture in San Francisco’s Pioneer Monument near City Hall that shows a Native American at the feet of a Spanish missionary and vaquero, and one in New York City that depicts a Native American and an African holding the stirrups of Theodore Roosevelt astride a horse. Earlier...

Chicago’s aldermen enjoy a great deal of power in their respective jurisdictions, including the ability to block or restrict new housing development. And that authority—referred to as the aldermanic prerogative—has been used to preserve racial and economic segregation, and worsen the city’s affordability crisis . That’s according to a recent report by the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance (CAFHA), which states that aldermen in majority-white, well-off wards have disproportionately deployed...

State legislatures are an ever-changing landscape. Some states cram in a year of policy into short sessions, and the membership is constantly turning over. It can be a tough environment for child welfare issues to find traction, even with widespread concern over increases in foster youth and shortages in foster homes. One national organization is taking a crack at embedding more state houses with legislators poised to take the lead in this arena. The National Conference of State Legislatures...

Stephanie Keith, a photographer with Reuters, was recently invited by Lakota medicine man Ivan Lookinghorse to cover a 400-mile horse ride from Green Grass, South Dakota, to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, commemorating 150 years of the Fort Laramie peace treaty between the Sioux Nation and U.S. government. Keith said : “Under the treaty, the federal government recognized the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory as part of the Great Sioux Reservation and hostilities ended between the Sioux and white...

STOCKTON, Calif.—The philanthropists came on air-conditioned buses from big cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. They were driven past vacant lots overrun with weeds, auto-repair shops and fast-food restaurants and meat markets, and deposited at a construction site that had once held a liquor store that police had long tried to shut down because it was dominated by drug dealers. And there, they were asked for money: money to pair single mothers with case managers, money to provide...

Last month, Bloomberg reported that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, has accumulated a fortune worth $150 billion. That is the biggest nominal amount in modern history, and extraordinary any way you slice it. Bezos is the world’s lone hectobillionaire . He is worth what the average American family is, nearly two million times over. He has about 50 percent more money than Bill Gates, twice as much as Mark Zuckerberg, 50 times as much as Oprah, and perhaps...

At the height of summer, naps at the beach can be alluring, and many of us may find ourselves tempted to take prolonged vacations from exercise. But two new, admonitory studies involving both older and younger adults who temporarily cut back on their physical activity indicate that the metabolic consequences of not moving much for a few weeks can be pervasive and persistent, lingering to some extent even after people start moving around normally again. Physical activity is, of course, good...

Prison employees experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at a rate that is similar to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and higher than police officers, according to a study by researchers at Washington State University and the University of Alabama-Birmingham that was recently published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. The researchers sent surveys to each of the approximately 2,000 members of the union representing WA state prison workers. A total of 355 Washington State...

Research has often cited urbanicity, or dwelling in an urban setting, as a risk factor for developing the symptoms associated with psychosis. A new study, published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, examines the impact of urbanicity, adverse neighborhood conditions, and violent crime victimization on developing psychotic experiences in adolescence. The authors, led by Joanne Newbury of King’s College London, determined that adolescents raised in urban vs. rural areas were significantly more likely...

My wish for all who have experienced ACEs and trauma beyond childhood is hope, healing, joy and tranquility. We all deserve nothing less.