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Tim Pippert, right, with Augsburg University students Madelyne Yang, left, and Donovan Holmes. Pippert, director of Augsburg Family Scholars program, called new state grants that cover the cost of college for foster youth a “game changer,” though he suggested such efforts should also be paired with supportive services. Photo courtesy of Augsburg University. By Farrah Mina, The Imprint, July 11, 2023 During her senior year of high school, Madelyne Yang sat down with her counselor to...

By Jill Suttie, Photo: from article, Greater Good Magazine, July 17, 2023 There is a long line of research showing that when we make contact with people who are socially different than us, we tend to feel less prejudice towards them. This is known as “the contact hypothesis,” and it has been proposed as a potential remedy for prejudice for decades. Contact seems to work best for reducing prejudice when the people involved have equal power in a situation or the contact is generally positive,...

By Laura Gallant, 7/20/23, https://positiveexperience.org/blog/ Over the last year, the HOPE National Resource Center has added several online courses to our HOPE Virtual Learning Hub . These courses include the basics of HOPE and practicing HOPE. The modules are self-paced with a certificate of completion at the end. Several courses offer continuing education credits and continuing medical education credits. Learners will engage with interactive modules featuring videos, quizzes, and...

16 Strong Project is excited to be recruiting for our Youth Advocacy Board! Our goal is to involve youth in our program and resource development as well as provide guidance to this group to be leaders and advocates around ACEs and PACEs in their own schools and communities. Together, we are combatting the youth mental health crisis by empowering youth leaders and uplifting youth voices. We are looking for a group of creative, resourceful, hard-working youth ages 14-24 to join our Youth...

Chicago high school students (Getty Images) By Jo Napolitano, The74, July 18, 2023 A recent study out of the University of Chicago showed high schools that prioritized social- emotional development had double the positive long-term impact on students as compared to those that focused solely on improving test scores. As part of their work, researchers determined school’s effectiveness based upon its impact on students’ social-emotional development, test scores and behaviors. They concluded...

By Hannah Fry, Illustration: Patrick Hruby/Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2023 When my son was about 2 months old, I figured I just had an extended case of the postpartum “baby blues.” It’s a right of passage of sorts for many new moms that comes with mood swings, crying, anxiety and difficulty sleeping — which seems like a particularly cruel joke. I wish I realized earlier that it was much more. My son will be 3 years old this summer and I can’t help but feel a little sad...

By Usha Lee McFarling, Illustration: ADOBE, STAT, July 12, 2023 T he nation’s widespread racial health disparities won’t be erased without changes to how health care systems are funded and accredited, more public and financial accountability for poor patient outcomes, and more work to overturn the income inequality and residential segregation tied to poorer health and lower life expectancy for many people who are Black and brown. Those are some of the conclusions of health equity experts who...

By Jia Tolentino, Illustration: Shuhua Xiong, The New Yorker, July 10, 2023 Tim Wehage grew up in South Florida. At home, the TV was often tuned to Fox News, where he heard a lot of rants about liberal hypocrisy, but he didn’t consider himself political. After high school, he began working for his family’s construction business. He had no intention of going to college until he realized that he didn’t want to spend his adulthood doing manual labor in the tropical heat. In college, as a...

By Dylan Scott, Illustration: Julianna Brion/Vox, Vox, June 23, 2023 Joslyn Conchas grew up with a single mom in Fresno, slipping in and out of poverty. She became interested in medicine while helping her grandfather pick ticks off their dogs and started dreaming of becoming a vet. Then her grandpa got sick, afflicted by high cholesterol and heart disease, and she began thinking about taking care of people instead. She saw how hard it was for her grandfather, who spoke only Spanish, to...

Charlie rests while listening to a sermon before being admitted to lunch at the Hope Center on June 21, 2022 in Hagerstown, Maryland. The Hope Center, which has been assisting homeless and addicted men and women in the Hagerstown community since 1955, continues to see a steady stream of people in need. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images By Chris Hedges, The Real News Network, July 14, 2023 Some 50 million people in the United States live in poverty today—and over 108 million people survive...

By Tina Chelidze, Photo: Suzanne Tucker/Shutterstock, Housing Matters, July 11, 2023 Housing policy and education policy can reinforce each other’s outcomes. Housing policy shapes the neighborhoods where schools are and those schools' student demographics . Education policy affects the quality of schools and the resources available to students, which then can affect housing prices and zoning patterns . Nevertheless, these policy areas suffer from misalignment across funding, governance, and...

By Karen Pennar, Photo Illustration: Hyacinth Empinado/STAT, STAT, July 18, 2023 I n Phoenix, where daytime temperatures are topping 110 degrees Fahrenheit for the third straight week, emergency room doctors think of extreme heat as the public health emergency it has proved itself to be: In 2022, Arizona’s Maricopa County reported a 25% increase in heat-related mortality from the previous year. “Heat is just something we know we need to be really worried about,” said Geoff Comp, an emergency...