Monday, April 27, 2009

This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Businesses urged to support regional drop out prevention work
The New England Business Bulletin, Dartmouth, MA – April 24, 2009
New research on drop out rates in the SouthCoast was unveiled before community leaders on April 9, in a study that identifies the problem as a regional crisis and urges educators, business and civic leaders to join together in what, the report says, must be a regional solution. The report identifies several strategies for addressing high drop out rates include expanding mentoring programs, such as SMILES; expanding early childhood education; supporting increased family engagement in education; and putting a greater focus on career education.

Dropout Reduction and Jobs Program Developed by University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work Student Funded for Eastside Memorial High School
The University of Texas at Austin News, Austin, TX – April 20, 2009
A job-training/dropout reduction program developed by a University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work student for the Austin Independent School District has been awarded a $250,000 grant by the Texas Education Agency. The pilot program, created by master's student Mary Duncan, prepares and supports students at Eastside Memorial High School at the Johnston Campus in their search for employment while making staying in school and graduation a priority.

Summit to focus on dropout rate
Caller-Times, Corpus Christi, TX – April 24, 2009
Every 26 seconds, a student drops out of high school in America, according to a national dropout prevention group. Locally, 282 high school students dropped out of the Corpus Christi Independent School District in 2007, and concerned residents want to solve this issue and increase public awareness. On May 6, the city of Corpus Christi and Citizens for Educational Excellence will host the Dropout Prevention Leadership Summit. The summit is funded through a $10,000 grant from America’s Promise Alliance.

Juvenile Justice

Officials highlight successes of Florida Dept. of Juvenile Justice
News-Press, Talahassee, FL – April 22, 2009
State officials took time today to address successes of the often-embattled Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. “We are a shining light on the countless success stories on the youth who are in our care,” said DJJ Secretary Frank Peterman. One of the department’s success stories is Gadsden County resident Ashley Hall, who attended Tallahassee Marine Institute and earned her GED at Dove Vocational Academy for Girls in Graceville.

Restorative justice gives victims a say in reparations
Delta County Independent, Delta County, CO – April 22, 2009
A new process called "restorative justice" will soon be employed to hold young offenders accountable for their actions. In the past, juvenile offenders have faced "punitive" sanctions like jail time, useful public service, or probation. Restorative justice re-establishes the connection between the victim and the offender. If amenable, the victim becomes part of the process by meeting with the offender in a restorative justice conference.

Foster Care

Program helps teens aging out of foster care system
MySuncoast.com, Bradenton, FL – April 20, 2009
A new program in Manatee County is helping teenagers who are aging out of the foster care system. Each year about 50 teens living in foster care reach adulthood on the Suncoast. Court officials say once an adult, the teenager is often left without a support system. "Next Step" is a program that was recently created to fill in the gap, and give the teens somewhere to turn.

Guardian scholar helps foster children transition into college
Golden Gale Xpress, San Francisco, CA – April 22, 2009
Turning 18 can be more terrifying than liberating for most kids living in foster care. Aging out of the system means entering the adult world with little direction and little leverage for success. For many, college quickly becomes an inconceivable option. But at SF State, Guardian Scholars is now one of several support programs throughout CSU campuses that helps foster youth transition into college by supplying the same educational opportunities provided to students from intact families, according to a recent report by the CSU.

Monday, April 20, 2009

This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

School turns dropouts, delinquents into college students
Dayton Daily News, Dayton, OH – April 19, 2009
Allen Holland had barely tasted freedom when his cell phone rang that hot afternoon in August. The 17-year-old had just been released from juvenile detention, partial penalty for a gun possession charge two weeks earlier. The voice on the other end surprised the West Dayton youth. School was still weeks away, after all, but there it was: David White, his principal at Dayton Technology Design High School.

New Bradford County program puts at-risk students back on track
Bradford County Telegraph, Bradford, IA – April 20, 2009
A new at-risk program has been implemented at the career center, and, so far, it has produced some great results for students who otherwise would have ended up as high school drop outs. Known as the Academy of Academics, it is a performance-based program that allows students to graduate on time with a GED Exit Option diploma.

School districts shave dropout rates
Mail Tribune, Jackson County, OR – April 16, 2009
Nineteen-year-old Diana Blunkall dropped out of Eagle Point High School last year with only 3.5 credits to complete for graduation. "I decided to drop out because I was failing my classes horribly, and I was having family issues," Blunkall said. "I couldn't handle the stress." She went back to school this year after realizing her future would be limited if she didn't earn her diploma. She is now earning her 3.5 credits through a credit-retrieval program at Eagle Point's Connections Alternative School, while keeping up 20 to 30 hours of work at a White City pizza restaurant.

Juvenile Justice

Palm Beach County juveniles get to skip a night in jail if they turn themselves in
Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, FL – April 16, 2009
Juvenile offenders who have skipped court dates on minor charges can stop looking over their shoulders to see if the police are coming. Thanks to a new state program being tried in Palm Beach County, starting this weekend they can turn themselves in without having to sit in jail while waiting to see a judge.

Juvenile offenders program celebrated
Herald Times Reporter, Lakeshore, WI – April 18, 2009
Lakeshore CAP's Restorative Justice Program, funded by United Way, has celebrated its 1,000th case completion. The Restorative Justice Program, formerly called the Victim Offender Mediation Program, works with juveniles who have committed crimes, such as bomb threats, physical assault, theft, criminal damage to property and vandalism, to enable them to apologize in person to their victims.

School of Second Chances
The Washington Post, Arlington, VA – April 12, 2009
The six teenage boys, incarcerated at the District's Oak Hill juvenile detention facility in Laurel file into their classroom after lunch one late January afternoon. They are surprised to see strangers -- five women and two men -- sitting in the chairs that the boys typically occupy. The students find some empty seats and shrug out of their matching brown coats and mismatched scarves. They are curious about the visitors in a lean-back, fold-your-arms, prove-it kind of way. "I'm James Forman," begins a 40-something man. "I'm a professor at Georgetown Law School and -- "

Foster Care

I Am Now teaches life skills to those aged out of foster care
Carolina Peacemaker, Greensboro, NC – April 16, 2009
What Travis Burrell saw and heard on the 12 o’clock news about foster care was all too real for him. Kids who are aged out of foster care often don’t have a place to go to, some don’t have a driver’s license and some don’t even have their high school diploma. Burrell was once himself a foster child and after watching a program on foster care on 60 Minutes, he received confirmation from the Lord and he knew he had to do something.

Stimulus to pay for youth job program
The News-Enterprise, Elizabethtown, KY - April 20, 2009
The Lincoln Trail Workforce Investment Board this week announced an environmentally friendly summer jobs program funded by the federal economic stimulus package. The Green Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute — GEL-IN — is expected to give about 200 economically disadvantaged 18- to 24-year-olds not only a paycheck but also teach them things like computer skills, leadership and how to start a business.

Monday, April 13, 2009

This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Summit leaders: Kids’ wisdom key to saving dropouts
Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Princeton, WV – April 10, 2009
When a group of concerned Mercer County youth leaders asked students what they could do to keep more kids in school, the solutions were overwhelmingly simple. In fact, Creating Opportunities for Youth Coalition Chairwoman Michelle Williams said the suggestions to a recent survey sounded brilliant when stated in a child’s plain-spoken wisdom.

Charter school graduating drop outs
ItemLive.com, Revere, MA – April 13, 2009
Phoenix Charter Academy is keeping former public school dropouts in class and boosting grade point averages by 100 percent over the past year, said representatives of the Chelsea school. Currently in its third year, Phoenix Charter Academy (PCA) serves 150 students in Revere, Chelsea and surrounding cities. Fifty percent of incoming PCA students have previously dropped out of school and with the average incoming GPA of a PCA student at 0.7.

Tracking Dropouts
Alexandria Gazette Packet, McLean, VA – April 9, 2009
When a group of students at T.C. Williams High School began skipping classes on Friday afternoons, school officials began trying to figure out what the problem was. In the words of Margie Walsh, who is executive director of secondary programs for the city’s school division, the students "had engaged in behavior they should not have." Walsh relayed the anecdote during a recent City Council meeting to demonstrate the variety of ways that youths can become disengaged as they make their way through high school.

Juvenile Justice

Grant aims to keep kids out of trouble
The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, VA – April 7, 2009
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. For the people working with at-risk youth, the old saying is more than a trite cliche. It's the difference between young people realizing their potential or ending up in foster care or juvenile detention. And, during tight budget times, prevention programs are usually among the first cuts. But Fredericksburg's Family Assessment and Planning Team hopes a new $250,000 grant will help many city youth stay out of jail.

Program seeks to steer youths away from crime
The Arizona Republic, Buckeye, AZ – April 12, 2009
Buckeye youths teetering on the edge of a criminal lifestyle soon will have a new lifeline. The town is launching a youth-diversion program aimed at steering kids who have run into trouble with the law back onto the right path. "We are excited because we think this is going to give our kids a hope that they didn't have before," said Buckeye police Lt. Phil Harris, who helped develop the Targeted Juvenile Intervention Program.

Quinn makes program to keep youths out of prison permanent
The Southern, Springfield, IL – April 7, 2009
state program aimed at keeping young people out of the state corrections system moved past its experimental phase Tuesday. Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation Tuesday to make permanent the Redeploy Illinois program. It’s been running recently as a pilot program in Macon, McLean and some southeastern Illinois counties, among others.

Foster Care

Landrieu amendment opens door for reforming foster care-financing system
The Louisiana Weekly, New Orleans, LA – April 13, 2009
The United States Senate recently approved a foster care financing reform amendment authored by Senator Mary Landrieu. The amendment to the Senate's budget would allow for reforming the foster care-financing system to shift resources to promote safe, stable and permanent homes for foster children. It represents another example of Sen. Landrieu's fight to improve the government's support for foster care children and families.

Sanctuary program aids those outgrowing foster care
The Florida Times-Union, Avondale, FL – April 12, 2009
A new board is pouring energy into a financially strapped foster care agency in Avondale. Teresa Eichner, newly elected chairwoman of the Jacksonville Youth Sanctuary, is about to launch a $150,000 fund-raising campaign to help pay for a transitional program for foster children ages 18-23, an at-home reading program for the struggling readers in care, renovations to group homes, plus money for birthday parties and holiday celebrations.

Program prepares foster children for the future
Contra Costa Times, La Verne, CA – April 7, 2009
James Lindemann has been in the foster care system since he was 5 years old. He's lived in many different homes, never really having the stability others his age have been afforded. Now 17 years old, he faces yet another huge transition - he graduates from high school this year and will move forward to Cal Poly Pomona next year. The LeRoy Haynes Center, where Lindemann attends school, has added the "Transition to Life" program to its list of services in an effort to prepare young men and women for life when they are emancipated at age 18.

Monday, April 06, 2009

This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Dropouts drop in online
The Post and Courier, Charleston, NC – April 5, 2009
Brianna Giesick was short of high school credits, but not of big dreams. The 20-year-old single mother earned her high school diploma earlier this week through the Evening Virtual School program at Fort Dorchester High School.

Guard offers dropouts diploma
Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, IN – April 5, 2009
Josh Blackburn dropped out of Leo High School in February of last year. The reasons were, in their own way, somewhat complicated. He’d had emotional problems his sophomore year when his mother had cancer and he had fallen behind. Troubled by high school dropout rates as high as 50 percent in some cities, Vaughn came up with the idea of creating an academy that would let dropouts re-enter high school in a military school setting, get a diploma and eventually become members of the National Guard.

Multiple agencies work to stop high school dropouts
Rocky Mount Telegram, Rocky Mount, NC – April 4, 2009
With local dropout rates holding well above the state’s 4.97 percent, a handful of Twin Counties agencies are working to make sure that students like Northern Nash High School freshman Sheldavid Hardy have a chance to be more than a statistic. Even after failing an English course last semester, 15-year-old Hardy and many of his peers have a chance to make up the credit without waiting until later in their schooling when dropping out looks like a better option than trying to catch up. “This is going to prevent me from being behind,” Hardy said of the after-school program that he’s a part of.

Juvenile Justice

Delawarean's documentary tackles juvenile justice system
The News Journal, Wilmington, DE – April 2, 2009
Three years, 50 cities and 22,000 minutes of footage later, a documentary about the failed promise of juvenile justice is getting its debut this month. "Justice for All: The Documentary" -- which was directed, produced and written by Wilmington native Sherry Dorsey, sometimes working 16-hour days on the project -- debuts Sunday in New Orleans and April 23 at Theatre N.

Redeploy Illinois: Local troubled teens get a second chance
New-Democrat, St. Clair County, IL – April 1, 2009
Demontee Townsend knew he was in trouble. He faced a six- to nine-month sentence in the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice. The then-15-year-old admitted he committed crimes -- joy riding in a stolen car, stealing from department stores -- and expected to go to jail. He'd already spent 20 days in the St. Clair County Juvenile Detention Center, away from his mother, siblings, school and friends. Then Townsend heard about a program that might allow him to avoid prison, so he wrote an essay to then-Associate Judge James Radcliff, who presided over juvenile court.

Summit focuses on helping educate at-risk youth
Ventura County Star, El Rio, CA – April 1, 2009
About 70 percent of formerly incarcerated youth return to the Ventura County Juvenile Facility within 60 days, while about 20 percent fail to enroll at an alternative school after their release, county Probation Agency officials said on Tuesday. To address this growing problem, about 60 county educators and officials from the county Probation Agency, the District Attorney’s Office, Behavioral Heath and various nonprofit organizations gathered Tuesday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Ventura where they discussed ways to better address the needs of at-risk youth.

Foster Care

Youths get a hand living on their own
Des Moines Register, Des Moines, IA – April 4, 2009
Elisha Hobbs spent parts of the past six years moving in and out of youth shelters and foster care before starting to live on her own at age 17. This week her first apartment was transformed into her first home. A small army of volunteers filled her Des Moines basement apartment carrying bags of bedding and supplies to bring new life to her sterile living space through the Elevate Our Youth to Adulthood Project.

Helping foster kids take 'A Step Ahead'
Great Falls Tribune, Great Falls, MT – April 1, 2009
Poised to "age out" of Montana's foster care system, 17-year-old Amanda Hogan of Bozeman had big dreams for her future, but no solid plan for making them a reality. After attending Student Assistance Foundation's A Step Ahead College Preparatory Camp, she says she has a place to begin her progress. "College is the only real chance you are going to get to have a career," Hogan said. "Going to college will change your life."

Mentors Help Former Foster Youths Realize Dreams
UC Davis News, Davis, CA – March 31, 2009
Foster care was a rough experience for Marita Grant, and at one time her future looked bleak. She saw her peers from foster care living on the streets and doing drugs. Everyone dismissed her dream of a college education. But today, the junior is thriving at UC Davis with the help of a program that offers support to former foster youths. The Guardian Scholars Program, now in its second year at UC Davis, is providing about 45 students with practical help, a social network and individual mentoring.