Blog

By Malik Pickett, Pennsylvania Capital-Star, June 27, 2021 Glen Mills, Wordsworth, Devereaux, and most recently the Delaware County Juvenile Justice Center are all highly publicized scandals involving the abuse of children inside Pennsylvania juvenile facilities. Abuses such as these precipitated Gov. Tom Wolf’s creation of the Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice Task Force which studied the Commonwealth’s juvenile justice system for 16 months to create recommendations for reform. Last week, the...

I no longer celebrate holidays, as doing so would be illogical to have the most safety and hopeful possibilities for myself and who I am attached to - and would equally betray the connection I have to other life, impacting every child and innocent having the most safety and hopeful possibilities.

By Dana Thomson and Susan Balding, Child Trends, June 22, 2021 Public debate on the root causes of child poverty has often focused on individual—usually parental—behavior. This means that safety net policies have often concentrated on encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors among parents and caregivers, usually through program eligibility requirements like minimum work hours or citizenship, rather than focusing on societal obstacles to alleviating poverty. The American Rescue Plan...

By Cecily Sailer, Resolve Magazine, June 2, 2021 On a chilly spring morning in Philadelphia, Michelle Simmons unlocks the door to the building she owns on Chelten Avenue, not far from her old middle school. She owns three buildings in Germantown, actually. More accurately, her nonprofit owns them. But Simmons and her organization, Why Not Prosper , are basically synonymous. Once inside the building, she moves quickly, flipping light switches, sorting paperwork, stuffing goodie bags, talking...

By Martha Bebinger, National Public Radio, June 23, 2021 One evening in late March, a mom called 911. Her daughter, she said, was threatening to kill herself. EMTs arrived at the home north of Boston, helped calm the 13-year-old, and took her to an emergency room. Melinda, like a growing number of children during the pandemic, had become increasingly anxious and depressed as she spent more time away from in-person contact at school, church and her singing lessons. NPR has agreed to use only...

Trauma Informed Care Practioners, Dr. Warren Larkin of the United Kingdom and Becky Haas of the United States are teaming up to host a second global conversation on the implementation of ACEs science on August 16 from 12-1:30 p.m. (EDT). Session two will feature Mathew Portell, Principal of Fall Hamilton Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee. Mathew Portell has dedicated a decade and a half to education in his role as a teacher, instructional coach, teacher mentor, and school...

By Emma Ockerman, Vice, June 23, 2021 After a Florida teacher mistook a third grader’s drawing of a person hugging a rocket for male genitalia, police seized the child for an involuntary psychiatric examination and threw her into the back of a squad car, according to a new federal lawsuit. A group of parents and advocates filed the complaint against the School Board of Palm Beach County and local officials Tuesday. What happened to the third-grader, who was 8 years old at the time of the...

By Anne Brice, Greater Good Magazine, June 18, 2021 Emiliana Simon-Thomas is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center, where she co-teaches The Science of Happiness , a free, eight-week online course that “explores the roots of a happy, meaningful life.” She earned her Ph.D. in psychology from UC Berkeley in 2004, studying how emotional and cognitive processes interact to shape behavior and brain activity. In the interview below, Simon-Thomas talks about how humans are a...

By Jim Rendon, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 1, 2021 A wide array of grant makers have signed an open letter calling for foundations and wealthy donors who do not already have relationships with grassroots groups to direct more of their racial-justice giving to funds with close ties to communities of color rather than only trying to support grassroots racial-justice groups themselves. The past year has brought vast attention to organizations led by people from marginalized groups, and...

By Brandon Tensley, CNN Politics, July 1, 2021 "They're shooting at us. They're supposed to shoot BLM, but they're shooting the patriots." That was one of the Trump-supporting insurrectionists who laid siege to the US Capitol on January 6 in a deadly attempt to overturn the election that secured the White House for Joe Biden. She was expressing a sentiment that many Trumpists share: that the US belongs to Donald Trump (who at the time of the Capitol riot was still in the White House) and his...

By Dwayne Curry, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, June 16, 2021 My wife and I have been married since 2019, but we’ve known each other since we were 14-year-olds. We are raising a blended family. She has a daughter who is 9 and a 7-year-old son. I have a son who is 8, and together we have a 2-year-old son. The pandemic has profoundly shaped my parenting experience in numerous ways. I had to transform my house into a combined virtual school, daycare, and work setting. The last year has...

By Jim Krajewski, Reno Gazette Journal, June 24, 2021 Ku Stevens will not let history be forgotten. Stevens’ determination is already known. He was the lone runner on the Yerington cross country team this spring . In track, he posted the second fastest time in the state in the 1600-meter (4:23.16) and in the 3200 (9:47.26). Later this summer, Stevens, who will be a senior at Yerington, will retrace his great-grandfather's journey in escaping from the Stewart Indian School outside of Carson...