This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Notebook: Arlington schools receive grant to prevent dropouts
Star-Telegram, Arlington, TX – January 25, 2009
Arlington’s six traditional high schools will benefit from a nearly $500,00 three-year federal grant aimed at decreasing dropouts, youth violence and gang activity, according to school officials. It will be used to develop a program in which juniors and seniors mentor incoming ninth-graders through student organizations, according to the district.

ADAC hosts drop-out prevention program training
Lufkin Daily News, Lufkin, TX – January 25, 2009
Tucked away in an office in Cotton Square in downtown Lufkin, a small group of drug and alcohol educators from across the state and U.S. bonded as they learned how to help the youth they work with connect to live in a positive way. The program helps students build self-esteem while connecting them to themselves, their communities, peers and school. It focuses on making changes in their norm, moving their images of things like schools and community from a negative norm to a positive.

Omaha Teen Tries To Break Free From Poverty
MSNBC, Omaha, NE – January 19, 2009
Most 17-year-old girls are focused on prom dresses, high school graduation and boys. Chissa Shepard thinks about where she’s going to sleep at night and what she's going to eat. Shepard is part of the program that pays her and other high school dropouts to go to school, train for a job and plan for a career.

Juvenile Justice

Greenhouse program in North Toledo helps teens grow up
Toledo Blade, Toledo, OH – January 25, 2009
In the last four years, some 225 local teens have worked in a collaborative initiative between CITE (a Lucas County Juvenile Court job-training effort) and Toledo Grows (Toledo Botanical Garden's community garden outreach). Dan Pompa, administrator of the Lucas County Juvenile Court, said CITE/Toledo Grows works mostly with kids on the edge of serious delinquency. Usually, they're "kids that live in some of the higher-risk neighborhoods," kids who are "in the system enough to have gotten our attention and be placed on probation."

Agency Helps Troubled Teens And Their Families Survive
Tampa Bay Online, Tampa Bay, FL – January 26, 2009
Often they're from out of state. No close friends yet, no relatives to lend a hand. A teenager in the family is getting into trouble. The school is threatening expulsion; the child seems on the verge of losing control. Even the siblings' grades are slipping amid the turmoil. Stressed-out families often feel they have nowhere to turn. But in Hillsborough County, they do.

Foster Care

Give teens 'fighting chance'
Appeal Democrat, Marysville, CA – January 24, 2009
For Donna Simmons, every day her job is about small amounts of progress and steps forward with the children she works with. The 49-year-old mother of six is a Transitional Housing Placement Program mentor at Lake Francis Resort in Dobbins. She says every day and every child that comes through the program is different. Programs like Environmental Alternatives in the Yuba foothills try to address these statistics by teaching young people in their program money management and how to live on their own.

Broward Housing Solutions opens new doors for aged-out foster youth
Sun Sentinel, Broward County, FL – January 26, 2009
Local youth who age out of the foster care system can now find affordable housing and call it their own thanks to the generous financial backing of the Community Foundation of Broward in support of Broward Housing Solutions' mission to meet the needs of this specific population. Broward Housing's program, "Housing Solutions for Young Adults," specifically addresses youth with mental health issues, and is partnering with Henderson Mental Health Center and SOS Children's Villages Florida. Broward Housing Solutions' recently opened the doors to Woodside Gardens in Coral Springs and Wilson Gardens in Hollywood.