Blog

In a lot of ways, we have more in common with chimpanzees than we do with bonobos. Both species of ape are considered humans’ genetically closest living relatives, but chimpanzees live in patriarchal societies, start wars with their neighbors, and, as a paper published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences put it, “do not take kindly to strangers.” By contrast, bonobos, which form female-dominated societies, have no problem welcoming outsiders into the fold: They mate,...

Recently The Chronicle of Social Change published a discussion between Sean Hughes and Richard Wexler. A good part of the discussion focused on the impact of IV-E being converted to a “block grant” versus remaining an entitlement. But implicit in that discussion is another: “Which works better to keep children safe: Foster care or family preservation?” The question as framed presents a misleading dichotomy. When Richard Calica and I developed the Illinois Model of Practice in 1995, we...

The 2014 killing of Michael Brown by police turned the word “ Ferguson ,” the name of Brown’s Missouri hometown, into a call for action against police violence. Proponents of aggressive policing styles, however, have managed to appropriate the term to fit an opposing agenda. While the Ferguson cause has been about exposing the devastating consequences of the over-policing of black neighborhoods , the “ Ferguson Effect ” is a campaign about over-hyped, alleged crime waves overtaking urban...

When Harvard sociology professor and 2015 MacArthur award-winner Matthew Desmond was growing up, money was tight. “Sometimes the gas got shut off and Mom cooked dinner on top of our wood-burning stove,” he writes in Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City . “She knew how to make do.” Still, when the family could no longer keep the creditors at bay, the bank foreclosed on Desmond’s childhood home. By that time, he was at Arizona State University on scholarship and recalls feeling...

The following is an excerpt from VICE drug columnist Maia Szalavitz's forthcoming book Unbroken Brain, published next month by St. Martin's Press. I opened the door with a needle in my arm. Seven plainclothes narcotics cops burst in, five burly men and two women, all shouting. I hastily finished my shot and threw the works down, attempting to be discreet about it. I had been expecting my friend Lina, who should have been returning with money for the cocaine Matt and I had just fronted her. I...

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced the 16 communities that have been chosen as finalists for the fourth annual RWJF Culture of Health Prize. The Prize honors communities that place a high priority on health and bring partners together to drive local change. [For more go to http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2016/03/RWJF-selects-2016-culture-of-health-prize-finalists.html]

The list of badges available to Girl Guides once focused on skills such as baking, beekeeping and even telegraphy. But, in a move to equip members for the day-to-day challenges of life in the 21st Century and tackle what is viewed as one of the last great stigmas, the organisation is introducing a new award promoting awareness of mental health issues. The new “Think Resilient” badge will encourage girls to deal with stress and discuss problems openly. [For more of this story, written by John...

There’s a known stench on Rikers Island in the New York summertime. Neither the people incarcerated there, nor the correction officers working there, can escape it. “The smell alone would torture you,” says Candie Hailey-Means, who was incarcerated at Rikers until May 2015. “It smells like sewer, mixed with fertilizer, mixed with death.” Hailey-Means was sent to Rikers on Feb. 22, 2012, when she was 28 years old. Six weeks after her arrival, Hailey-Means was sent to solitary confinement...

A landmark trauma-informed education bill to address “chronic absences of students” in the state’s public schools has passed the Oregon legislature and awaits the Governor’s signature. The bill, H.B. 4002 , requires two state education agencies to develop a statewide plan to address the problem and provides funding for “trauma-informed” approaches in schools. While the $500,000 funding level in the bill falls vastly short of the original $5.75 million request for five pilot sites in an...

Dressed in traffic-cone orange, a similar shade to the fish under their care, inmates at the San Francisco County Jail set about their weekly duties: checking for pests, pH levels and the overall welfare of the jail’s pilot aquaponics program, the first of its kind in the state. With guidance from their instructor, who has been schooling them on everything from plant biology to economics, the inmates check on the roughly 80 goldfish swimming in a 400-gallon blue water tank, and the beds...

A federal law that went into effect last year promotes the idea that foster youth need to be engaged in the everyday activities that all other young people enjoy to improve their outcomes as adults. One clinic in Pennsylvania has been working on this issue for years, and its staff describe the road to “normalcy” as one complicated by fiscal challenges and legal hurdles. The Interdisciplinary Child Advocacy Clinic (ICAC) housed at the University of Pennsylvania’ School of Law represents...

March 10, 2016. A new study in the April 2016 Pediatrics suggests people who experience four or more traumatic events known as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are significantly less likely to graduate from high school, which is a leading indicator of lifelong health. The study, “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Well-Being in a Low-Income, Urban Cohort,” (published online March 10) followed 1,202 economically disadvantaged, minority participants who attended kindergarten in...