March 2018

On February 12 , 200 California Youth Connection (CYC) members, allies and community members gathered to celebrate 30 years of the organization’s youth-led advocacy in California, and to continue the fight with a new bill to prevent unnecessary placement changes for foster youth in the state. That day, the steps of California State Capitol in Sacramento resonated with the voices of current and former foster youth, who chanted “C’mon, c’mon, join the fight! Stability is our right!” and “CYC...

CHARLESTON — As the opioid epidemic continues to ravage West Virginia, a group of child welfare advocates gathered Wednesday to kickoff a campaign to ensure children impacted by the crisis aren't forgotten. "We talk a lot about the drug epidemic in terms of overdoses and first responders, but we rarely talk about the kids," said Kelli Caseman, Director of Child Health with West Virginians for Affordable Health Care. "They're kind of the second line of casualties." Caseman is leading "Year of...

This article was produced in partnership with WMFE, which is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network . A Florida bill to assist first responders suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder has found new life in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. At least three first responders to the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, which killed 49 people, have publicly disclosed that they have a PTSD diagnosis, and advocates have been trying to expand...

In the spring of 2016, African-American children as young as 11 marched in protest against the gun violence in their Miami neighborhood of Liberty City. The low-income area had lost 13 teens and children so far that year to guns. The kids demanded the right to play outside safely; they held signs and chanted slogans like “We want to live” and “We want to see another day.” Phillip Agnew, leader of the Florida-based Dream Defenders, a youth-led group fighting for racial justice, said the...

In the fall of 2017, news of the six-by-six bare pine boxes—which have, in their various forms, been called "seclusion enclosures," "isolation booths," "isolation boxes," and "time-out rooms"—used to confine elementary school students in eastern Iowa, sometimes for over an hour at a time, went viral. As the headlines mounted, angry parents learned they did not legally have to be informed of such measures if taken against their children by educators. Critics contended that the use of these...

Uber wants to get you from your home to your doctor's office — and you won't even need to open the Uber app. The company announced Thursday that it's teaming up with health care organizations to provide transportation for patients going to and from medical appointments. The rides can be scheduled for patients through doctor's offices, by receptionists or other staffers. And they can be booked for immediate pickup or up to 30 days in advance. That means patients without a smartphone — who...

I did not understand how poor my family was until my maternal grandmother told me a story about sackcloth dresses and beans. I was in my 20s, and we were sitting in her kitchen, the tickle of cool air from the window air-conditioning unit barely on us, when she told me that while she was a child, her mother made dresses for her and her siblings from sackcloth, and that she was always disappointed because the sacks with pretty patterns were taken by the time she was given the opportunity to...

For more than 60 years, it has been the standard of care to try to speed up childbirth with drugs, or to perform a cesarean section if labor was seen as progressing too slowly. Now a new set of recommendations is changing the game. In February, the World Health Organization released a set of 56 recommendations in a report called Intrapartum Care for a Positive Childbirth Experience . One key recommendation is to allow a slow labor to continue without trying to hurry the birth along with...

Much like its adult counterpart, the United States’ juvenile justice system teems with racial disparities and overcrowding in settings inundated with non-violent, low-level offenders, according to a new report. Nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative released “ Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie ” on Tuesday (February 27). Per the report, although Black kids represent less than 14 precent of all American youth under the age of 18, Black boys make up 43 percent of the male population in juvenile...

How to Find Sacredness in Our Shared Humanity The healthy shift towards inclusivity—socially, culturally, politically—must also infiltrate our notions of ‘spirituality’ if it is going to bring us together as a humanity. Does this matter? It matters a lot, particularly for those of who seek an inclusive and humane world. In the same way greedy, unconscionable capitalism is destroying us, humanity-severed spirituality is destroying us. It’s all part of the same power-seeking patriarchal...

If you haven't heard Dr. Felitti speak, make it a point to attend CAMFT's Advancing the Art and Science of Psychotherapy Conference Sunday, April 29, 2018. Dr. Felitti will be speaking about the profound relationships between adverse life experiences in childhood and adolescence and the major implications for the health and economy of the nation. To register or to learn more about the conference go to www.camft.org/ac18.

In the aftermath of the Florida shooting, as with every shooting, journalists scramble for explanations. They wonder what went wrong, or were there signs. They parse the shooter’s social media accounts, school and work histories, and recent breakups, searching for motives. As a Court Appointed Special Advocate, my perspective is somewhat different. I work with foster youth. My job as a CASA is get to know and empathically understand a traumatized child, in order to effectively advocate for...