By Rohan Preston, Feeling Fit, December 19, 2020 The decades may have helped the wound to close over, but you can still feel the hurt under his words. Gardener and social worker Kenny Turck was in grade school when his big sister committed suicide at 21. An outspoken daughter of Litchfield, Minn., the Crow River community that her family had called home since 1875, Kathy Turck was gay and the victim of a horrific assault. "She was raped by four men, and the judge blamed the assaults on her...

By Roy S. Johnson, December 4, 2020, AL.com. Danielle Lacey Chavers rolled the dice. Though she didn’t fully grasp the depth of the consequences. Not even as she rounded the corner inside a gated Trace Crossings community in Hoover and saw a fire truck leaving the cul-de-sac where her family lived. Or as she saw an ambulance and a phalanx of police cars in front of their home. Or realized it was a drug raid. The oldest of Chavers’s two sons, Jeremy, a teenager who had picked his younger...

By Cinnamon Janzer, December 2, 2020, Next City. From constantly churning a ball of molten glass that has to be kept above 1,000 degrees to multiple trips in and out of various ovens as the glass ball is blown and shaped into its final structure, glassblowing is an art form unlike any other. Another unique trait of glassblowing is that it’s often largely a team effort, particularly when someone is learning. Practice with that mutual effort, something that can be difficult for those who have...

Join us on December 8th for this discussion on Transforming Correctional Design for Justice Reform! Work in corrections or youth justice? Engaged in the social justice movement? Are you a designer or architect? This is one talk you can't afford to miss! Christine Cowart, of Cowart Trauma Informed Partnership will join Janet Roche, faculty member and Alumni Council member of Boston Architectural College (BAC), in alive-broadcast event, to discuss the implications of trauma-informed principles...

By Z, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, November 9, 2020 In 2000, I was 14 years old, in Los Angeles’ Skid Row. You wouldn’t believe such a Third World slum existed within history’s richest country; oh, but it did. It does. A section of one of the world’s most glamorous cities set aside to hide thousands of homeless people, to hide America’s unwillingness to deal with poverty, mental health, drug addiction and homelessness. It’s all swept under the rug, or under the shadow of downtown’s...

Learning about ACEs science changed David Magallon’s life in a profound way — and now he’s made it part of his mission to share that knowledge with other parents who really need it. Since 2017, Magallon has served as a court referral programs manager at the Child Parent Institute (CPI) in Santa Rosa, California. The non-profit agency offers child therapy, parent education, and other resources for families throughout Sonoma County. Magallon works with families in a probation program mandated...

English: The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Service, Office of Child Abuse Prevention’s (CDSS/OCAP) , Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative , ACEs Connection , and the Yolo County Children’s Alliance have co-created a newly developed resource, “Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic” in both English and Spanish. This material is intended for Californian families experiencing the severe...

By Buta Biberaj, Carol Siemon, and Miriam Aroni Krinsky, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, October 12, 2020 A viral video in August showed an 8-year-old boy being arrested at his elementary school in handcuffs that slid off his tiny wrists. A police officer can be heard telling the child, “You’re going to jail.” Sadly, this is just the latest disturbing example of the uniquely American phenomenon of vilifying and overpolicing our nation’s children. America incarcerates more people under...

We just received word that Governor Newsom signed microstamping bill, AB 2847! We'd like to thank Assembly Members Chiu & Gabriel, and coauthoring Assembly Members Bauer-Kahan, Gipson, Gloria, Muratsuchi, M. Stone, Ting, and Wicks. We'd also like to thank coauthoring Senators Jackson & Wiener, and of course, Governor Newsom. Congratulations to the thousands of Brady supporters who helped steward this lifesaving bill through the state legislature and onto the governor's desk. Your...

By Sean Coughlan, October 5, 2020, BBC News Family and Education. "Once you're caught in the grip of the system you are doomed," says the founder of a radically different approach to jailing young offenders. Steve Chalke aims to stop a revolving door of criminality that at present sees 69% of young prisoners reoffending within a year of release. He says the "19th Century, Dickensian" approach is "absolutely broken". Instead he will lead England's first "secure school", opening near...

By Celest Fremon, Witness LA, October 2, 2020 At approximately 4:42 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, September 30, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 823 , a budget trailer bill that will lead to the closure of the state’s troubled and violent youth prison system. Yet the bill is far more than that. It is also is designed as an historic reform measure intended to fundamentally transform the way that the state and its 58 counties approach youth justice. Furthermore, the bill includes the creation of...

By Emmy Betz and Benjamin Li, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, September 30, 2020 September usually marks the return to school, with teachers setting up classrooms and youth headed off on a new year of learning and growth. But 2020 has been anything but usual. In many parts of the country, learning has moved online as teachers set up virtual classrooms and youth engage from their bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms. Parents are faced with balancing work and oversight of home learning;...