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This is a poem I come back to over and over again. I found it years ago, and every time I look at it, it seems to resonate in new ways. After some days of supporting clients, it’s the “immense responsibility and very little authority” that catches me. After other days, it’s about “resounding triumphs and devastating failures.” And still other days, it’s about “always be[ing] frustrated.” My frustration is sometimes directed at the systems. Why are they so complicated? Why do they set people...

In January 2011, a 9mm bullet, fired point-blank from the gun of a mentally ill assailant, passed through the left rear of Gabrielle Giffords's head and exited just over her left eye. The Arizona congresswoman, who had been meeting with constituents in front of a supermarket near Tucson, would survive—despite massive trauma to the left side of her brain, the regions that control vision, movement, and speech. After surgery and intensive therapy, some 10 months later Giffords could respond to...

On Tuesday, two days after a film about a massive Catholic sex-abuse scandal in Boston won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Pennsylvania’s attorney general released a grand jury report chronicling “staggering and sobering” accounts of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. The report alleges that, dating back to the 1970s, “hundreds of children have fallen victim to child predators” in abuse cases that involved over 50 priests and religious leaders in the area: As wolves...

In almost all major American cities, most African American and Hispanic students attend public schools where a majority of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income, a new analysis of federal data shows. This systemic economic and racial isolation looms as a huge obstacle for efforts to make a quality education available to all American students. Researchers have found that the single-most powerful predictor of racial gaps in educational achievement is the extent to which students...

Alison Hanks-Sloan wanted to know how to keep her students from dropping out. A former ESOL teacher, she was working in the international students’ office at Prince George’s County Public Schools, a large suburban system in Maryland, right next to Washington, D.C. Just two-thirds of the county’s English language learners were graduating high school at all, let alone on time. Immigrants make up one-third of the system’s 128,000 students. New students are arriving all the time, including,...

In 2006, the Brookings Institution worked with the Center for Transit Oriented Development and the Center for Neighborhood Technology to study the transportation patterns of the U.S.’s low-income population. Until then, many researchers and policymakers had assumed that larger and wealthier households owned more vehicles—and more expensive ones—and drove more miles overall. But the 2006 study found that transportation methods had less to do with household income and more to do the...

A new report claims that “non-white race” adolescents showed higher resilience in the foster care system as they approached the age of emancipation. Many foster youth face challenges transitioning into independent adults. These challenges are related to difficult experiences in childhood and lack of adequate resources, resulting in dysfunctional behaviors and outcomes. The study attempts to explore the success stories among these high-risk youth–those who circumvent the challenges and...

Mark Cuban and Emmitt Smith are speaking up about mental illness so others won’t remain silent. Dallas’ Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute launched a new effort Monday to encourage Texans to seek any psychological treatment they need. At okaytosay.org , people can share their stories and offer support to spread the word that effective treatment is available statewide. “Nine out of ten Texans think that it is more difficult to discuss mental health rather than a physical issue,” the...

Of all the patients I have seen in my 40 years as a psychoanalyst, Daniel was the strangest. He was the most inaccessible, inwardly tormented and infuriating man I have ever known, and yet he stayed in therapy with me for over a decade, calling faithfully every week — he insisted that his work schedule precluded coming in person — even though he spent many of those sessions in silence or addressed me as if I were inanimate. He drove me crazy, he haunted me and he moved me, sometimes all in...

A Boston nonprofit plans to soon test a new way of addressing the city's heroin epidemic. The idea is simple. Along a stretch of road that has come to be called Boston's "Methadone Mile," the program will open a room in March with a nurse, some soft chairs and basic life-saving equipment — a place where heroin users can ride out their high, under medical supervision. Dr. Jessie Gaeta , chief medical officer at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program , which initiated the project,...

Michael Lamb, Executive Director, Washington D.C., Turnaround for Children sent the following message about a new paper, Building Blocks for Learning, just released by Turnaround and three new positions it is seeking to fill. Take a look: "Hi friends and colleagues, it’s an exciting time for Turnaround in Washington, D.C. as we work towards our vision that one day all children in the US attend schools that prepare them for the lives they choose. In addition to our exciting work in schools,...

Try to find a patch of green in the Eastside Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights and you might get lost amid the gray pavement. With the 5, the 10, the 60, and the 101 freeways weaving through the area, it’s easy to find a paved road, much harder to find a green space. Keep looking and you might stumble upon an oasis, Proyecto Jardín, a communal garden and local treasure in Boyle Heights. It’s where I recently found Antonio Garcia carefully tending his crops. Young gardeners turn to...